A Thing Like Loving You
by Joel182
Summary: It's a last chance at a first love, and they will do anything to make it work. SLASH WARNING! MalexMale! Pairings: DeanxRoman and RandyxSeth. Enjoy :)
1. One Million Miles

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING SAVE THE PLOT. ALL RIGHTS FOR NAMES RESERVED FOR WWE AND VINNY MAC.

Enjoy :)

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In the middle there was a train station. Before that, there was a plane. The train arrived late and forced him to buy a new pack of Marlboro's, considering he had just emptied the pack he had on him. The train took hours to get to his only point B, and once it had, there was an old metal bus waiting. Travelers looking to be elsewhere carrying luggage and loved ones from various parts of the country shuffled into the bus, filling every one of its available seats. As the journey went on, the sounds of a travel-tested engine grew louder as each stop decreased the passenger count. By the time it hit the last stop, he was the only passenger left to get off. Grabbing hold of his lightweight backpack, he marched forward and exited the bus after stating a politically correct thank you to the impolite driver – watching as the massive metal transport turned on its axle and roared back down the road it had come from. The empty road ahead spelled a lot of walking, but soon his outstretched thumb managed to halt a small pickup truck. The older man popped open the passenger side door and gestured for the hitchhiker to jump in. He obliged and took a seat. The drive was silent and rather extended, going on long enough to turn what had been dawn into a full-blown late afternoon. After what seemed like hours themed only by the sounds of wind and engine noise, a small town cut in the center by the lonely road came into view outside a dirty windshield. Atop a rotten wood post sat a sign of a town named solely after its mile marker. At the mouth of the town, they passed the St. John's Lutheran Church – an old wood building that had founded long before people started populating this lonely area. A few meters later, the pickup drove by a large building he instantly recognized long before reading the sign posted at the hilt of its driveway – Town 66 Junior and High School. Miles went under the tires of the white pickup before more buildings came into sight. The heart of the town clustered together like penguins in the Antarctic, with the local bank sitting close to the local funeral home which neighbored the local clinic. Further in, the streets were decorated with the ever-present American flag as they passed by cook houses, junkyard auto shops, bars with the old townspeople sitting stony-faced on the outside, the general store where the housewives bartered what they couldn't buy, an antique shop, and the once gem of Town 66, Reagan's movie theater (now nothing more than a boarded up old building that had over-stayed its welcome here). The pickup came to a stop at the entrance of a small coffee shop/diner to let its passenger out. The driver tipped his hat as the exiting passenger bid a thank you and goodbye. Once the truck had driven off past the town limits and vanished down the long stretch of dead road, the stillness of the small town settled rather comfortably into his sphere. Distant birds sung away as chimes hanging behind him at the diner's entrance jingled loudly to the lost bit of wind that had blown in alongside him.

After a deep breath, he marched across the tar road and stopped in front of the face of a large, brick building. The steel door stated back at him with no regard for his own nervousness. Another deep sigh occurred as he gathered up what fleeting courage had brought him here. Instinctually, he looked down and spotted a rock to the left of the door. A small smile seeped on to his face as he bent down and picked it up. After a moment, he flipped it over and opened the bottom with a quick twist. A gold key looked back up at him.

Nine years have passed, and still everything here is the same. Even this fake rock with the key stationed at the door hadn't lost its place – a novelty that made him truly believe that maybe the same could be said for him. With key in hand, and rock placed back to the ground, he carefully twisted the lock only to find it unopened. A sudden shock overcame him as he tried in many ways to outsmart the logical part of his brain that was ever so rapidly telling him in a rather mocking tone, 'See? I told you he wouldn't be here'. As soon as the thought surfaced, he put it down by ramming the key drastically into the lock and twisting frantically only to arrive less close to where he wanted to be.

The seemingly faraway sounds of the mostly deadness of nature mixed in with the sing-song alarms of the nearby chimes, hummed by his ears without ever truly being recognized, or taken into some account. The key hurt his fingers the tighter he held on to to, and his eyes looked at the door with heart-break clearly glazing them over. He began to realize that maybe he had lived in his own selfish delusion for far too long. After all, nine years wasn't just the average feat. Nine years were a true test of will that no one participating in could have ever hoped to endure. He hadn't fared so well, never really coped with the regret and the loneliness, and yet here he was holding a key that no longer had the power to open these doors – having traveled back here in the belief that this place and its occupant would have done far better than he had.

Looking around as he did, the town – small and seemingly disconnected from the very meaning of its category – never truly shed its exterior. Rather, if he could print his memory of it and put that next to a photograph of what his eyes now witnessed, the pictures would look identical. However, beneath the aged facade that could barely stay hidden beneath the fresh coats of paint, he could feel the change of this town pulsating all around him. It was like he was standing in the belly of a giant beast, or in the heart of something very close to death. As a long sigh encompassed him, he felt the weight of the key as it hung suspended in his loosening grip, felt the air wrap around him like a fickle blanket not intended on keeping him warm, and caught fluttering whiffs of what he could easily recognize as a scent from his past mixed in together with odors of a change he never saw.

'You're a fool.' Logic spoke callously to his psyche forcing into him a very comfortable depression. He inhaled the scent of the world he had once turned his back on, and opened his eyes after breathing had occurred. The diner was still there. The theater was still there. The streets were still small and two lane. People were aimlessly ambling around like they used to as though the concept of time was a lost art to them. Upon getting this second look at the immediate area around him, nostalgia infected his being once more, and convinced him against his better judgments not to leave. 'Stay' his mind seemed to say as it tried to keep his cowardly feet from kicking forward and running back to where they had always escaped to.

"Dean?" The heavy voice sent chills immediately down his spine. Nothing had changed in his immediate line of sight, but behind him something had become quite different in a rather familiar way. "Dean is that you?"

He didn't want to turn around. Everything he called 'senses' truly did not want to turn his blue eyes to what his back now faced. Being here and feeling cold and clammy and afraid was not what Dean Ambrose wanted.

But—

"You still leave the key in the same stupid rock." One foot turned slowly followed by the other – allowing his body to pivot a full 180 until his thin smile and carefree blue eyes faced the man in the doorway. "I thought I warned you about thieves."

The dark-haired man looked on at Dean with eyes furrowed in a permanent frown. "I changed the door locks." He glanced down for a moment, catching the glimpse of the key in Dean's hand, "That key's no good here."

Dean scoffed lightly as he forced himself to stand firm on the ground beneath his feet – amidst its desire to wildly kick him out of his equilibrium. "You should have thrown it away then." He felt his face crack to the strain of the heavy smile, but gave way to no faltering – knowing the consequence had he gone and done just that. "It's misleading."

"I don't need to get rid of it." With a raised hand, the larger man quickly pulled back the long strands of dark hair that trickled down luxuriously over his broad shoulders and upper chest. "You're the only one who knows it's there."

"I guess." Blue eyes caught on to the patches of black ink that stained the muscular arm of the man stood ahead of him. "You finally got that tattoo finished." The older man looked to his arm with boorish eyes. "And your hair." Dean smiled as the large man flung his eyes back to him, "You grew it out."

"It's a pain to get a haircut. Plus you're in no shape to talk looking like a Wildman." A long sigh emitted from his lips as his eyes went south towards the concrete beneath their feet. "Why… are you here Dean?" He spoke from the gutters of his deep voice.

It wasn't as if he was naïve. Naivety wasn't his cup of tea, nor did it come with the package that was him, so he expected the question and he expected it to hurt. However, what came as the true surprise was his inability to speak the truth that he had convinced himself of for nearly a decade. This scenario had more or less terrorized his very thought process, so much so that it had become a routine as subconscious as breathing, and yet he was unable to say what he had recited in his very dreams. For a few lingering seconds, Dean found the reason behind his paralyzed vocal cords to be the very same reason he did not want to accept the fact that the key he held in his hand no longer opened the door of what he thought was always and forever his place. Nine years ago when he stood in this very same spot staring into the eyes of this very same man, he had foolishly put a childish curse on everything within reach. A curse that would keep it all as it was no matter where he was and they all weren't. Hopeful in the hold he had on his life back then, Dean truly believed his amateur magic would work, but somewhere along the line his adult mind morphed into overbearing logic that knew only one truth. When you leave a place behind, don't expect it to be there when you return. The world changes even if you remain the same.

"I was just passing through." The larger man looked at him with a slight shock embedded in his winter-blue eyes. "I'm spending the night here and then I'm heading back." His smile increased the longer he stared at the cold expression sitting on the larger man's face. Dark eyes that could see through him then still felt as though they could see through him now – even though the him of now stood encased in impenetrable steel armor. "I thought I'd just check around on everyone before I left again."

"Passing through, huh." The dark-haired man scoffed dryly as he folded his muscular arms across his chest. "Well, you sure picked the best time to do that." Noting Dean's confusion, the large man continued on, "Summer vacation's over and school's back up and running. People are out in the city trying to make ends meet. The only people in town around this time are those who run the family businesses."

"Ha, ha." He chuckled stiffly, "I guess I'm too late then."

"Yeah." The larger man looked on with a harsh stare, "You're too late."

His smile slowly dwindled as his eyes began to drift towards his shoes. They were worn –badly so – but still held the overall shape of a good sneaker. The ends of his jean pants were lightly frayed and dirtied by months of simple traveling. His shirt had a stain at its hem, and he really didn't know what it was or where it came from. His back and shoulders held up a small backpack filled with everything he had accumulated over these past nine years – and the weight of it all was not as existent as he once believed it to be.

Simply put, Dean had nothing. Nothing in his backpack, nothing his pocket. He had nothing except this small, barely there town with its fledgling businesses, this place, and this useless key in his hand that would never again open this door. And it was all because he was too late. Like always, his timing never did him any good because he was never any good to begin with.

Quietly, he picked up the fake rock and placed the key back in its place. "It was good to see you again Roman." He put the rock back down before standing straight and looking at the larger man, "Take care."

Roman looked on brazenly at the slender man, before letting out a heavy sigh. With one arm outstretched, he quickly hooked around the man's shoulders and brought him face first into his broad shoulder.

"Your poker face still sucks." Beneath his fingertips he felt the softness of Dean's lightly curled blonde hair, and immediately had to commit himself to a stationary position so as to resist the urge to tousle it lightly and rest his face in it. "Looks like that key wasn't so useless after all."

A light breeze slipped through the area and startled some of the pieces of unhinged brick, and wood that had yet to give in to their rotten status. The two men at the doorway spent a while simply standing in time and refusing to move to its ebb and flow. Rather, they took the moment to recall all that needed to be said, and decide within each other to put the need aside and let what occurred occur.

And time itself had no choice but to stand still.


	2. Confrontation

The ropes rattled in the confines of their tautness as the mat echoed the loud force and weight suddenly applied to its lightly powdered surface. Through eyes widened with a heightened sense of concentration muddied by meandering instincts, the small boy looked at the brief shadow of hurt that encompassed his sparring partner.

"Good take down Jesse!" Roman spoke from the floor, "Brandon," He looked to the boy lying pinned to the mat, "your reflexes are getting sharper but when Jesse moved in for the scoop" His large arm came up from beside him and immediately formed a hook midair – only to be instantly stopped by his blocking right forearm, "you need to stop it like this, and then turn his momentum against him. Got it?" Both boys nodded in understanding. Roman signaled to them as he instructed "Let's take a break."

Brandon nodded his head sheepishly in slight relief to his teacher's instruction, before looking back up at Jesse stood above him. The young boy held out his arm – which Brandon took without a second thought – and assisted his fallen partner back to his feet. Both children shared a brief handshake, before walking out through the ropes and towards their respective lockers.

Roman headed towards the medium-sized fridge stood at the end of the room, took from its bowels a bottle of cold water, and quick drank it half-empty. After a refreshing exhale, shadowed blue eyes watched the happenings in the room as though analyzing every movement for later referral. The room in itself had been a lot bigger back when he was a child. The square ring – tattered and propped up mostly by outside interferences – sat in the middle of the room taking up a good ninety percent of its entirety. Across from the ring sat a row of lockers that had been the donation of the local school. A few chairs from the nearby church sat huddled around a make-shift fold-out camping table and acted as the meeting center of this little wrestling school. A punching bag hung near the ring on its north side, and looked far worse than some of the kids did on their first day here. Duct tape was the glue that kept most of everything together in here, and the punching bag boasted the most use of it. A few towels sat hanging over the a stockpile of barbels and dumbbells, and a pair of jump ropes sat wound atop the heap.

Once upon a time, this building was teeming with hopefuls and dreamers who truly wanted nothing more than to become the world's greatest in a world that seemed so beautiful and unique. Now, this nearly condemned building housed remnants of its glory and was converted into a haven for the local children whose only other option would be to give into the dark sides of the faraway city. Decades ago, this town was a rather content and happy place. People worked hard and lived even harder, but they never stayed anything short of grateful. However, as the years passed and the lights of a distant city grew brighter and brighter, the town started to lose its next generation, and in no time at all, its place on the map. Now, the town had become nothing more than a collection of old buildings gridlocked around a vast countryside road that cut through its center so as to meet with the large highway which led to the city. Life became unbearable, and so forced the loyal out of their own homes as they searched for ways to keep food on the table. Such desperation left behind a world of young and barely grown to fend for themselves and make do with what little their world had to offer. For the ones who grew up in this environment, the world seemed to always be ten steps behind them. For the ones who didn't make it here in this slice of quaint Hell, they became unable to adapt, and as such became stuck in a place that slowly ceased to exist rather than age in time.

With the bottle held up to his face, Roman doused himself with the remainder of the water and tensed a bit to the icy feeling against his hot skin. He drew in another deep breath as he looked up at the low ceiling. No air conditioner, no fan, and nearly one hundred degrees of sun heat made up for the stuffy feeling now clogging his very lungs. Ahead – now seated at the make-shift table – Brandon and Jesse talked about their move set and joyfully showcased their growth to each other. Roman thought on how nice it was to be young given that neither boy seemed to mind the suffocating heat that blanketed all around them. Inside, he knew that just beyond the door beside the fridge was a set of stairs that led to his abode. He knew that in his abode there were ceiling fans and windows that would assist with cooling down his boiling blood. He knew he could leave the boys' here alone because they knew never to open the front door no matter who came knocking. He knew this, and yet he decided to simply wipe his face with the towel hung on his shoulder, pull back his messy mane into a tight ponytail, and join the two boys in their conversation – because for all the pluses upstairs had, it also had Dean Ambrose. That enough was reason to not go.

On his way towards the boys, the door lock began to groan as the metal slipped out of the cavity and popped open. Roman looked over and was immediately latched onto by a heavy body.

"Ro~!" He shouted as he wrapped his arms around Roman's neck and shoulders. "I missed you so~ much~!" Immediately following the baby talk was a kiss to Roman's bearded cheek.

Roman smiled lightly as he ruffled through the soft mass of hair atop the young man's head. "School's not out yet Seth." He looked down at the giddy expression on Seth's face, "Are you ditching again?"

"I don't have any more classes in the afternoon" He smiled brightly as he squeezed his grip on Roman to a tighter stance.

Roman scoffed lightly, "Any more classes that you consider important, you mean."

To the remark, Seth pouted childishly as his large eyes fell slightly downwards – showcasing the full length of his dark lashes. "What the hell? Are you that unhappy to see me even though I missed you so much?"

Something broke inside of the larger man, and immediately caused him to wrap his tattooed arm around Seth's smaller shoulders. "That's not it." He gave the young man a kiss atop the mass of brown and blonde hair sat atop his head. "I'm always happy to see you Seth."

The younger man smiled shyly as he looked back up at Roman – staring for a silent moment into the older man's piercing blue eyes. Seeing the happiness return to Seth, a smile slipped onto his face and remained there longer than he normally would have allowed.

"Yuck!" The comment drew the attention of both men as they looked to find Brandon and Jesse staring back with utter disgust on their faces. "What the hell are you guys doing?" It was Brandon who spoke.

"Shut up you little twerp!" Seth lashed out to the kid, "We're just greeting each other!" He stated far too matter-of-factually.

"Men don't greet men with kisses." Jesse joined in with his own argument, "That's just gay."

"Put a cork in it Jesse!" Seth barked at him. "Ro's mine so I'll greet him anyway I want." With a middle finger planted squarely ahead at both kid's, he cockily added, "Go to the city if your asshole's so itchy."

To the remark, both Jesse and Brandon stood up and headed towards Seth. The young man quickly ran towards the door next to the fridge as Roman stood in the way of his charging students.

"Coach, move it!" Brandon shouted as he pushed against the man's large arm.

"He needs to get his ass kicked for saying that!" Jesse spoke up from Roman's right.

"Now, now." Roman spoke calmly as he gently pushed back both boys. "Seth didn't mean it. Plus, you started the fight with your remarks, so don't be so surprised by the consequences."

From over Roman's shoulder, Seth stood at the doorway slinging back a barrage of mocking faces towards the irate teens. Instantly, the boys began a second attempt at charging past Roman, but the older man was set in his decision to stop them from advancing.

"You let him off too easy Coach." Jesse spoke once the reality of him never getting to Seth had finally sunk in. "I get who he is an' all, but you gotta discipline him when he's being disrespectful."

"Yeah." Brandon stated from Roman's left as he too was stumped by the understanding of where he was never going to be. "He's always comin' around here and clinging to you like duct tape. Doesn't that bother you?"

Roman looked to both boys and smiled slightly as his eyelids fell partway over his sharp eyes. "No." He rustled his hand quickly through Brandon's head, "You two should head home for the day. Work on your reflexes." He looked to Jesse, "And your attitude. I'll see you guys tomorrow."

Both boys looked to each other momentarily before nodding respectfully to their Coach, and heading to unpack their lockers. Roman watched on as the boys waved goodbye and headed out the door – closing it behind them as they did. With his students gone, Roman drew on a long breath before looking back to find Seth looking at him with a tinge of something strangely heart-wrenching locked in his auburn eyes.

"Don't listen to them Seth." Roman spoke as he slipped the towel off his shoulder. "They don't mean any harm."

For a moment, Seth looked on without much change, but as Roman's expression began to mar with concern, the young man immediately slipped on a large smile that quickly steered his outlook to something inexplicably carefree.

"As if I'd take those brats seriously." He spoke with a short laugh. "I'm heading upstairs."

Roman nodded to the statement, only to stop short of a faltering realization that he had company upstairs. In an instant, Roman cast aside his towel and bolted towards the stairs. Seth had apparently skipped a few, as no matter how quick he charged up the flight of stairs, he did not catch up with the young brunette until they were both well inside his upstairs domain.

The space in itself was rather large considering it was the upper level of a fairly adequate sized wrestling school. The living spaces – living room, kitchen, and balcony – were all congregated in one open space. The bathroom sat to his right in a closet-sized space, while the bedrooms both sat side by side near the back of the space. The ceiling fan swung around in a low hum that chopped ever so often as it wobbled in repeated circles, keeping the open space cool all on its own. Not much could hide away in the small living space considering its sparse furnishings – a tired sofa facing a street-view window, a table with two chairs, a kitchen with three appliances, and an okay-sized television mounted on a wicker TV stand – all of which had been arranged in a way that best allowed for a clear line of sight to the balcony. On the balcony itself sat a chair – part of the set that sat around the small, wooden table – and an ashtray. Without even having to look, Roman knew that what Seth was focused on was the current place of the ashtray, as well as the current occupant of the chair.

"Seth—"

The young man immediately dropped his backpack and rushed over to the balcony. With a heavy force, he flung the glass door open and quickly grabbed the surprised man up out of the chair. Without a second thought, he pushed the man's back up against the shaky railing in an attempt to force him over the edge. Rightfully scared for his life, the blonde immediately swung the ashtray forward and hit the brunette in his head, forcing the man to release him. It was in that moment of separation that Roman managed to wedge himself between both men – taking care to hold Seth back as the man was still charging despite the head wound.

"Who the fuck is he?" Dean spoke outside himself for a moment as fear made way for his overbearing logic.

Roman glared back at him for a moment before ushering the brunette back inside and carefully helping him onto the chair around the table. Dean watched the scenario take place before him as if he was looking through the glass of a snow globe, before realizing that he was on the inside of this world and thus had to participate. Instantly, Dean rested his weapon of choice down and headed inside towards Roman.

"Roman," He asked – less harshly as he had before – "Who is that kid? Why was he trying to kill me?"

Roman continued to dig through his kitchen cabinets in utter silence before finally locating what he had been looking for. Unable to comprehend the reason behind Roman's decision to ignore his very presence, Dean stepped in Roman's way – holding onto his shoulders in an effort to ground the larger man.

"Roman –" Worry stained the entirety of Dean's expression and tone.

"Don't." Roman spoke coldly as he pushed past Dean.

The blonde stood inside the iciness left behind by the dark-haired man. Beneath the thin layers of clothing and skin, Dean felt his heartbeat speed up to a rapid rate as though it was trying to outrun itself. To the feeling of unbalance, Dean quickly shut his eyes for a moment, drew in a deep breath, and exhaled as he released his baby blues from their fleshy prison walls. The mostly brown kitchen stared back at him with cabinets opened widely and a slight touch of messiness surrounding the space as a whole.

"Ouch!"

Dean turned to spot Roman sitting ahead of the young brunette – who had given his verbal disapproval to having his head wound dressed by healing ointments. The coldness returned as he now felt his mind galloping ahead with an array of thoughts that were as logically sound as they were useless to his need to remain calm.

"Sorry." Roman's deep voice spoke in a tone far more comforting that what he had bequeathed to Dean just moments ago. Hearing such a tone cut a part of Dean that the blonde thought could not be reached. "We gotta get it dressed so it doesn't get infected."

The brunette looked up with a childish pout on his face, watching silently as Roman placed a bandage over the cut to seal it from the elements. Dean stepped forward, alerting the attention of the now frowning brunette. In an instant, the younger man leaned closer to Roman and immediately wrapped his arm around Roman's tattooed arm. The sight put a heavy punch into the gut of Dean as he felt himself momentarily lose the strength needed to keep standing.

"Who is he Ro?" The brunette asked with his large eyes still fixed squarely on Dean.

Roman packed away the ointment and box of bandages back into the first aid kit, and sighed as his head hung low. For a moment, all three men fell into silence. Dean watched from his seemingly distant post as the young brunette attached to Roman's arm looked to the older man with childish concern marring his face. Sensing the wait hovering about him, Roman looked to the young brunette, smiled and gently rubbed the top of his head – further meshing together the streaks of blond with the streaks of more natural brown. The cut somewhere in Dean deepened as it widened, and on instinct alone, the blonde found it difficult to showcase nothing short of utter hurt on his face.

"He's just passing through." Roman spoke with words that Dean himself could deny. "Go and take a shower and get ready for dinner, okay?"

Seth looked back towards Dean with a heavy glare, before looking back to Roman's kind face and feeling the room for no debate. Defiantly he tightened his hold on Roman's large arm, and frowned to the exposed tattoo before standing to his feet and heading to the room nearest to the bathroom – slamming the door behind him as he did.

To the heavy silence now sitting in place of what was once a noisy encounter, Roman heaved another heavy sigh as he too stood to his feet. It took a few seconds for Dean to realize that Roman was now approaching him. Somewhere deep in his soul, the blonde wanted nothing more than to stand his ground and demand to know what this was all about. However the cowardice that had kept him silent when Roman had merely told the brunette that he was just passing through spread to his resolve and dissolved it to the bone. Without further hesitation, Dean quickly stepped aside to allow Roman to pass by him on his journey to the kitchen. The larger man stopped beside Dean, and turned to look at him. The blonde looked to the floor, finding it completely impossible to meet Roman's eyes – afraid of the coldness he might find.

"I'm sorry that he attacked you" Roman spoke with a firm tone, "but Seth's used to this place being filled with just me and him, so he assumed you were an intruder."

"I am an intruder." Dean stiffened as he tried his hardest to ignore the heaviness on the back of his neck. "So you're living with someone now." He scoffed a little to dissipate the need to cry, "I'll stay the night and then I'll leave tomorrow." Quickly, he turned on his heels in an attempt to head towards the sofa. Roman's arm came to view and grabbed a hold of his. The heat of Roman's fingertips sent shivers down Dean's spine and made it far less easy to face the older man now, not knowing what kind of expression had now settled on his face. "I never thought you'd move on. I'm sorry for assuming that much. I'm sorry for attacking him."

From behind his back Dean heard Roman exhale ever so slightly, and it made him want to turn around, however the cowardice had spread like a resilient virus.

"You can sleep in my room." Roman spoke in a slightly warmer tone, "I'll take the couch." Striking blue eyes looked to Dean, slipping their gaze over the curly mass of blonde hair that parted slightly at the back to showcase a frail-looking neck that had molded into a very lonely back. Inside, Roman knew he wanted to lean forward and grab Dean in his embrace, pin him to this very floor, and make him stay. However, that desire had once been passed before, and after nine years, Roman had grown to be able to pass it by again. "Tomorrow," His hand released its hold on Dean's wrist, "at least stay for breakfast."

Dean listened on as Roman walked away and busied himself with straightening the untidy kitchen. His heart screamed in agony having long since broken at the poorly stitched to the words spoken from Roman. A heavy lump formed in his throat, and demanded he use nearly all his will to keep it from taking his tear ducts hostage. Quickly, his all too familiar feet ran to the offered room and closed the door – allowing him the safe haven in which he could cry.


	3. Bed And Breakfast

The sound of water hitting metal stirred him out of his sleep. For a moment he managed to ignore the noise, only to find himself wrung from the bosom of slumber by chatter followed by a short burst of laughter. Instantly, his blue eyes popped open as sleep fled from him, making way for a state of now being completely awake. His eyes soon adjusted to the light streaming in from between the cracks in the closed window shades. A tall ceiling stared him in the face with a lone ceiling fan spinning around as it moderately kept the temperature in the room at the lower end of the spectrum. Slowly he rose from the bed, gently pushing the sheets from his body as he did, and placed his bare feet on the hard floor below. The sound of chatter slipped in rather muffled, causing him to notice that where he was now was nowhere near where he had hid himself for nine years. Faint as it was, the sound of Roman's low voice speaking in otherwise indistinguishable audio sent his heart racing with anxiety. Nevertheless, the small smile stemming from the overall comforting feeling of being within earshot of Roman's voice calmed his nerves the longer he sat on the edge of the bed listening to it. In the same breath however, that there was another voice kept him from reaching the summit of joy as it served as a cruel reminder that no matter how many times he fell asleep in Roman's bed, nine years was never going to be a bad dream. This, being here in Roman's home and sleeping in Roman's bed…this was the nightmare.

Faced with sure depression, and feeling the creeping need to grab his unpacked backpack and run for the hills with his all too familiar cowardice as his driving force, he stood up and decided to indulge himself on what he was certain smelt like eggs and pancakes. Without another moment, he pushed himself towards the door, only to find himself once again hesitating upon hearing Roman's laughter. The sweet sound only served to hammer home what was now his bastard reality, and for a moment he found it twice as difficult to so much as dream on anything but running away. Blue eyes closed for a moment allowing the boisterous feelings of anxiety, fear and regret do their routine damage, before opening to the resolution that was his decision to open the door.

The bright light that caved in from the open balcony doors forced his hand ahead of his face to filter out the blazing sun rays. After a short moment, his eyes adjusted to the brightness of the day, granting him the ability to see without the need to squint. The silence of the room brought itself to the forefront of his attention – forcing him to focus on it and not his own hunger. He looked to the table and found the two men seated around it looking back at him with their breaths visibly held. For a moment, he wanted nothing more than to turn back and hide away in the room he had just recently been unable to sleep properly in, however when Roman pulled out the empty chair at the table in a gesture of invite, he found it impossible to give in to that cowardly desire.

Having been subject to the layout of the place prior to, instincts forced his blue eyes to look over at the balcony – finding it to be now void of a chair. His mind instantly conjured up the reason behind that current status, and quickly he felt the surge of warmth bubbling through the ventricles of his rapidly beating heart. After pulling out the chair, Roman did nothing more than continue eating his food, while the man seated to his right followed suit. The silent invite was all the motivation he needed to move forward, and he did so with a slight bit of haste beneath his feet.

Once seated at the table, his eyes glanced to Roman watching as the man casually polished off his plate only to just as quickly stand and turn towards the kitchen. A sting of sadness streamlined across his eyes as he immediately placed them down towards the food looking back at him from his plate. As the sound of water gushing over ceramic filled the awfully quiet room, he thought more and more on how wrong he had been to ignore his instincts and not run away when he had the chance to. He could have even when Roman offered up his room. He could have, even when Roman asked that he eat breakfast. He could have while everyone slept through the night. Now, having sat down at the table with a plate of a famous breakfast he never thought he'd see again let alone be allowed to eat, he knew in himself there was no way he could get up now and leave. Not when Roman had put up with his presence thus far.

"Dean, was it?"

The callous voice brought Dean's attention to the man seated ahead of him. The younger brunette – with his streak of blond hair – looked at the curly-haired blonde with his auburn eyes filled with a kind of coldness unbecoming of a summer morning.

"You've got pretty good reflexes, and a good aim." He narrowed his eyes as though analyzing the older man. "Are you a wrestler or something?"

Unsure of what to make of this interaction, Dean stiffly shook his head, before offering up a reply, "No." He stated in his scruffy voice. "I just get into a lot of fights."

"Oh~" The younger man drawled rather sweetly as he chomped down on a piece of syrup-laden pancake. "You know," He spoke while chewing, "I really would have killed you if Ro hadn't stepped in to hold me back." He swallowed the bit of food with emphasis, and finished it off with a long drink of his orange juice. "What I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry for attacking you, but it's all Ro's fault. He never told me you were up here." He looked to the man in question with a playful frown on his face. Dean watched as Roman scoffed to the accusation as he packed away the dried dishes, before looking back to the younger man now staring at him with a bright smile. "The name's Seth Rollins."

"Dean Ambrose." Dean smiled back at the young man. "Sorry for, uh" He pointed to the side of his own head, to which Seth mimicked – finding his fingers rubbing over a bandage. "That." He stressed.

"Don't worry about it." Seth spoke with a light-hearted tone. "Scars make the man, right?"

Dean nodded as he chuckled a bit to Seth's carefree demeanor.

"Don't go agreeing with him." Roman spoke as he returned to the table. His attention focused on Seth as he did, as his hand ruffled through the shoulder-length locks of the brunette. "He may not look it, be he _likes_ fighting." He spoke with a gentle smile on his face. "And making me worry."

The tender sight put another spear through the heart of Dean's resolve not to leave. Truly he wanted nothing more than to stay here, but the reality of being subject to Roman and his new partner withered all hopes he had while he sat on a plane, a bus, and in the cab of an old man's pickup truck on his return here. The place he thought was waiting on him when he saw the key still in the old fake rock was actually his own disillusion to what truly was. And what was, was Roman and Seth. Not Roman and Dean.

"Your food's going cold Dean." Roman spoke catching Dean's somber attention. The blonde held his gaze in Roman's eyes only to have that snatched away when the older man looked back to Seth, "You better finish your breakfast now Seth or else you'll be late for school again."

"But I don't wanna go to school~" The younger man whined childishly as he clung to Roman's arm, with puppy eyes looking up at Roman. "I wanna stay here with you~"

To the juvenile antics, Roman smiled sweetly as he once more rubbed the top of the younger man's head – further messing the young man's otherwise well-groomed ponytail. A large lump formed in Dean's throat as he suddenly found it much harder to breathe.

"I'll be here when you get back." Roman spoke in his usual low voice.

"Yeah, but" Seth pouted momentarily, before flinging his gaze over to a heart-wrenched Dean Ambrose. Noticing his reflection in Seth's bright eyes, Dean quickly rid himself of his feelings and put to the table a makeshift expression of nonchalance. "Dean's leaving after breakfast right?" The mask cracked a bit to the question, as Ambrose felt in Seth's words a hint of heavy rhetoric as though the answer had been long since concluded. Seth looked back to a rather stoic looking Roman, "I wanted to talk to him some more."

A heavy silence barged into the living space and sat atop the heads of all three men. Inside, Dean knew the truth of Seth's words because it was a truth he had long since conjured up as a way to protect himself from this harsh reality. When he arrived to this town, he had already concluded that he would leave if the building wasn't here. The building was here in the same spot he had left it in. When he walked to the door and found the key in the rock, he had decided to turn back when he found out that the lock on the door had been changed to keep him out. The door opened regardless. When he waited with his back turned to hear the sound of someone ask why he was here and who he was, he had already come up with his stringent responses, and had already decided to leave right after that. Roman showing up, and speaking to him like nine years never happened made him forget his own verbatim and fall victim to the belief that he could truly be allowed to forget the mistakes he had made because the person he had made them all to had held him close and told him that the key that couldn't open a simple lock, wasn't so useless after all.

"I'll be here when you get back Seth." He smiled a bit as Seth and Roman looked to him – the latter man showcasing a tidbit of shock. "I could show you some more cool fighting moves."

Seth's expression – for only the shortest of seconds – went deathly cold. His bright eyes darkened as his aura turned as black as Roman's hair. Dean felt the chill creep up on him, but before he could latch onto what it was, Seth showcased a bright smile behind the words "I can't wait."

"Dean—" Roman called softly, only to turn his attention back to Seth – who quickly let go of his arm and stood from the table. "Seth" He called garnering the man's attention, "You haven't finished your breakfast."

Seth laughed for a brief second, before grabbing his nearby satchel. "You always overkill my pancakes with syrup Ro." He headed to the door – holding it open as he ran a quick hand through his hair in an effort to straighten it. He looked back at Roman with a large smile, "I'll just stop by Randy's place for a quick bite."

"Hey wait—" Roman barked as he quickly stood to his feet – slightly knocking the table as he did – only to be cut short by a the swift departure of young Seth. The door slamming shut silenced the room once more, and forced Roman to return to his seat.

Dean watched as the older man looked down at Seth's unfinished plate of food. The sight of a barely touched plate seemed to hurt Roman in a way that reflected on his face.

"He's a lively one huh." Dean spoke without prior consent from his brain. "Must be good to be so young."

Roman scoffed as he looked back to Dean. "Yeah." He stared at the blonde with a sliver of coldness bared on the outer layers of his eyes. The stare put down the polite smile that had found its way to Dean's face. "I guess my cooking skills leave less to be desired."

"That's not true Roman." Dean spoke in quick defense of the older man, "Your skills have always been good."

Roman smiled shortly as he glanced down momentarily, "Is that why you've eaten your food?"

Dean looked to his plate finding all the pieces of breakfast to be in the same way they had been when he had stepped out of Roman's bedroom. Instantly he looked back to the older man, before grabbing a hold of his fork and aiming it towards the piece of French toast. Halfway there, the plate moved out of sight. Dean looked ahead and found Roman holding his breakfast as he stood to his feet.

"Roman"

"It's gone cold." He spoke whilst picking up Seth's plate as well. He looked down at Dean – finding the man staring back with a worried expression. The reaction brought a small smile to his face as he thought on the wonderful feeling that coursed through his veins. "Since you're staying, I'll make you another plate. A lot of syrup, just the way you like it."

Dean's expression grew in rapid delight as he sat shell-shocked by Roman's words. He watched as the older man threw the food away and began prepping the kitchen for another batch of his world famous breakfast. The sight brought a happy memory to an otherwise depressing reality. Suddenly, they were both young again. Suddenly he was looking at a short-haired Roman push himself beyond his own limits to put together the breakfast Dean had just asked for. When time shifted past the memories and fell back on the present, Dean spotted the now tiny scar on the back of Roman's hand that had been the result of mishandling a kitchen knife on that school morning now so very long ago. The fact that he was sitting in the same spot he had been when they were teenagers brought a peaceful smile to Dean's face – brightening his overall mindset and quietly securing in his heart the knowledge that somewhere in this place laid the possible chance of picking them up from where they had left off.


	4. Stalemate

A gentle sound echoed from the suspended chimes, that hung from the string wrapped around the nail on the door. The interior of the establishment was slightly darkened by the wooden blinds that had been put down by the owner. He walked to those first, and having shifted aside a few chairs to make room, took his time and opened them to reveal the brightness of another sunny day. A small smile came over his face as he looked outside the windows at the town and beyond. However, the smile fell once his eyes landed on the brick building across the road. To the change in mood, he turned away and quickly threw down his bag into one of the nearby empty chairs – taking the time to sit at the equally empty table with his back facing the window and his eyes now facing the large vinyl counter a few feet ahead.

The dregs of a long silence drifted on by the longer he sat mulling over his general annoyance. As he did, his mind wandered over a few of the culprits responsible for muddying his otherwise good mood. To start, there was a test coming up on a subject he cared little for, with a teacher he cared even less about. Somewhere in the middle of his problems, buried under the worry of how best to rescue his floundering grades, stood Roman Reigns. The ranking seemed unfair the longer he thought about it. Roman, after all, was always the root of his problems when it came to his mood, and so he quickly rearranged the list being created in his mind. At the start was Roman Reigns. Then there was that math test. Once again he delved deeper on the arrangement of his list of mood-thieving culprits. Roman was certainly number one in that respect, but he wasn't the only reason this time around. No this time, he thought, Roman now had friends. Just the one to be exact, but even then – based on Roman's unwillingness to properly put a title to it – that title was up for debate. Dean Ambrose, as far as he knew him, was nothing more than a stranger who showed up and took over Roman's bedroom, kitchen and balcony. Pretty much, the living space that he and Roman had shared these past seven years had been invaded by a no-rank no-title blonde.

Most times, he never complained about what Roman chose to do or say, or not do and not say. The reasons behind such obedience and compliance could never truly be narrowed down to just one, nor could they be categorized and then listed for review. Indeed, if he had to say what made him tolerate Roman's most recent behavior, the simple answer would be love. He loved Roman Reigns, and for that, he would do anything and be everything for Roman Reigns. With the mysterious Dean Ambrose suddenly entered into the picture and allowed to stay with no real explanation, the only thing he could be for Roman was the understanding party. Be upbeat, carefree, and full of smiles – everything that Roman had come to expect in his own behavior. He had to be just what Roman knew, and nothing else, because being something else would end him back on the road he took to get here. And he wasn't going back there. Come hell or high water.

"I like how you've made this place your second home, Seth" The low voice echoed through the space with sarcasm dripping from its tongue. Seth looked up at the door behind the counter – watching as it swung shut. "What brings you by this time?"

"I like your pancakes." He smiled coyly as he leaned forward across the table. "And the quiet."

"What, Jesse and Brandon finally starting to get to you?" The man spoke as he put on the coffee pot.

"Those brats are the least of my worries." Seth spoke with an arrogant tone, before planting his face on the tabletop.

"You're a brat too you know." The pot began to rattle lightly as its contents boiled to the heat. Having looked in the cupboards behind the large breakfast bar, the man brought to the surface two mugs – one red and one white. "I've had to leave the door open just to avoid you knocking every waking morning. Give me back my peaceful mornings, you brat" He waited for a comeback, but got none – a reaction that garnered his hard attention. "What's eating you?"

"I hate him." Seth spoke through the table – distorting his voice as he did.

The man sighed heavily before turning his attention back to the coffee pot. He took it off the burner and carefully poured the liquid into both mugs. The pot returned to the back counter empty, as he fished about for cream and sugar. With his body turned towards the younger brunette, the man added equal amounts of cream and sugar to both mugs. After stirring them both, he walked over casually towards the table, and sat in the space ahead of Seth.

Silence encompassed both men, before the oldest took the white cup in hand and took a sip of his hot coffee – stressing on the heat of the drink as he did. After drinking down a first taste to knock the lingering sleep out of him, he edged forward the red mug until it tapped against Seth's head. The brunette looked up to find the color red staring directly back at him. Slowly, he sat back up and took the warm mug in hand – drinking the coffee once it was brought to his lips. With grey-blue eyes watching the young man, the older man soon sat back laxly in the chair as he looked out beyond the large window to find the brick building across the street staring back.

"I can see Roman looking over here." A small grin slid over his face as he pushed the cup of coffee gently upwards momentarily in a polite 'how-do-you-do' to the man looking back through the window set two stories above ground – taking another sip of his coffee having done so. "He doesn't want you over here, yet he respects you enough to let you do as you please." He looked to Seth – who now simply sat staring into the liquid in his red cup. "I always told him that nothing good would come about him spoiling you so damn much."

"Ro won't get angry at me." He spoke softly, "He can't."

"Ha!" The older man chortled loudly, startling Seth as he did. "You're the only kid around here I know who does and says shit and doesn't get beat every day of his damn life!" He pondered, "Well, expect for that bruise you're nursing. Though it's probably not Roman who's responsible for it."

"Of course he's not! Ro would never hit me! It was that..." He bit his tongue. "And so what if Ro's not like these other people?" Seth looked at him sternly, "And anyways, I didn't come to this crappy place just to hear you state the obvious Randy." His voice rose slightly, "I came here for pancakes so go make some!"

Randy stared coldly at Seth's angry glare, before taking the time to blow over his coffee in an effort to cool it down. "Every time you have a fallout with Roman, you run over here to order me around." He took a long drink of the hot beverage, before speaking again. "Playing the role of favorite uncle was cute when you were a kid, but you're almost an adult now, _brat_." His eyes flicked towards Seth – burrowing into the boy's brown eyes with their intensity. "Don't mistake my kindness for weakness, or else I'll drop you where you are." Seth pulled back into his seat with his frown still present on his face, before dropping his defiant eyes towards the cup. "Drink your coffee before it gets cold." He folded a loose arm across his torso. "I'm not making another pot."

Seth remained defiant to the order, before the sweet aroma of the specifically made coffee sent his resolve packing. Instantly as Randy had spoken, the younger man began drinking his cup to a rapid emptiness. Randy scoffed a little as he watched Seth gorge himself in the beverage, before finishing off his own cup in one last gulp. With cup in hand, Randy stood to his feet and leaned over to take Seth's empty cup. Seth obliged without a fight, but just as quickly grabbed the tail end of Randy's T-Shirt – stopping the man from moving further.

"There's a stranger in our house."

"You mean that blonde guy?" Seth nodded stiffly. Randy eyed the boy's sunken nature for a moment, before letting out a long sigh, "What you and Roman have is unnatural, I'll say that, but" He looked at the mugs in his hands, "Roman will never leave you. No matter what."

"He lets that guy sleep in his bed." Seth spoke softly, "When I ask about who he is, Ro won't say anything. He's never done that before."

"What, keep secrets?" Seth nodded once more. Randy scoffed lightly as he lightly shook his head. "Everyone's got the right to keep secrets, Seth. It's human nature after all."

Seth looked up to Randy with a slightly worried expression molded onto his face. "Do you keep secrets Randy?"

The feeling of heavy chains coiling around him descended suddenly on Randy, and choked him of an immediate response. His wintery eyes looked back at Seth as if trying to find on the boy's face a hint of something childish to pick at until the topic was avoided entirely. Randy found no such opening, and immediately got caught in the singular rapids of his own guilty mind.

"I do." He answered honestly without much say in the matter, knowing that lying to someone as bold-faced as Seth was near impossible – a fact Randy had learned in the years he came to know the young man. "I still do."

Seth looked away rather solemnly as he released his hold on Randy's shirt. The space between them was no more than inch in total, however to Randy, it now felt close to one hundred miles. He knew what he had said had either hurt Seth incurably, or made sense in whatever was on his mind. For his own sake, Randy hoped the latter was the truth.

"If a secret you were keeping came knocking on your door tomorrow morning," Seth looked up at Randy, "would you close the door to everybody else from that day on?"

Randy looked away for a moment – placing a tender stare on the two cups being held in his hands. The red mug – Seth's mug – caught his attention for a while longer. Through it all, the older man had yet to respond to Seth's question. It wasn't that he did not have an answer. He did. However, what he did not have was the courage or basic desire to deliver his answer, because Seth was hurting over Roman's attitude, because Seth was a high school kid, because…reasons. All reasons, and none of them any good at convincing the older man that keeping silent at this very moment was truly the best thing to do.

"There's a place a man goes to when he's lost everything in his life." Randy spoke in a low, gravelly voice, "I've been there. Roman's been there. I came back to find this diner. He came back and found you." Cold blue eyes looked down at Seth's face. "Roman loves you Seth. No matter who comes along, no matter what happens in this world…Roman will always love you. No secret is going to change that." He cracked a light smile at the young man. "Alright?"

Seth nodded after a brief moment of mulling over Randy's words. The young man soon turned his attention to his satchel, opening the front flap to reveal books and binders. Randy watched as Seth took out some of his books and began flipping through them.

"It's almost time for you to go to school Seth." Randy spoke commandingly.

"If I'm late it'll be your fault, Randy." Seth replied with a childish arrogance surrounding his words. He looked back up at the older man, smiling brightly as he held Randy's expression in his eyes. "You better hurry up with my pancakes."

Randy scoffed heavily as he looked ahead in disbelief. "You damn brat." He spoke under a low breath, before looking back down at Seth. "Fine." He turned briskly on his heels and headed over to the counter. "No syrup right?" He spoke as he placed the cups atop the counter.

"Please and thank you~" Seth sing-songed mockingly.

Randy glanced back to the younger man, finding his attention now placed on the contents of his textbook. A sense of calm settled into the diner and brought to Randy the feeling of the peace he believed this young man to have stolen the first day he stepped through the door. Content with how his day had started, Randy turned away and headed back into the kitchen – taking care to make Seth's morning pancakes the way the young man had come to enjoy them.


	5. Promises

The mat rattled loudly as the otherwise healthy body dropped heavily to its no-give surface. Not willing to stay down for too long, the fallen boy quickly utilized the longest reach currently available to him in his legs – kicking forward to push back his attacker. The reaction worked as his heel landed a devastating blow to the other boy's chest, allowing him the moments he needed to get back on the offense. Not wasting a second to congratulate himself on his great comeback, the boy immediately sprinted forward and took down his wounded attacker with a body tackle. The wounded boy – still gasping for the air that had just been heel-kicked out of his lungs – caught an opening in being pinned to the mat, and took advantage in an instant. Without any warning, the attacking boy found himself twisted and coiled around in a way that had his chin now attempting to pierce his chest cavity, his arms bent in all sorts of wrong ways, and his ribs being pushed against each other having been locked in by a leg vice. After flailing about, and finding such attempts to merely add to the pressure being exerted on all his out of place joints, the trapped boy quickly rapped his hand against the mat – signaling his overzealous desire to quit.

"Good job Jesse." Roman spoke from behind ropes. "You can let go now."

Jesse nodded to the older man and released his captive just as quickly as he had trapped him. The boy instantly grabbed his ribs as the pain set in on them the more air he tried to introduce to his momentarily starved lungs. His head felt heavy as blood rushed back down to his heart, and his arms went rubbery for a moment as his joints tried to reconfigure themselves to their respective right of way.

"Brandon." Roman spoke commandingly. "I want you to focus on how to fight out of submission moves, and not on how quickly you can tap out to them."

"But Coach," Brandon spoke as he stood to his feet, "Jesse damn well had me in an Iron Maiden. I couldn't even breathe!"

"First of all, watch your language." Roman replied with as he hopped off the ring apron, "And second," He looked back to the boys stood in the ring, "real men don't quit, no matter how much their situation hurts." He leaned his head slightly forward, as his eyes rested squarely on Brandon, "Understood?"

The young boy nodded solemnly only to feel a heavy hand gently rub through his hair. Instantly, he looked up and found Jesse smiling slyly at him. "I'll show you how to break that hold."

"Alright." He smiled back, "And I'll show you how to dodge a heel-kick." He looked back at Roman, "Can we have another five minutes Coach?"

Roman glanced over his shoulders at the clock hung above the entryway. He soon returned his eyes back to the boys. "Alright." He smiled gently, "Five minutes and then it'll be time to head home."

"Thanks Coach." Jesse spoke delighted, but as his eyes wandered from his mentor, they immediately caught sight of the open door at the top of the stairs. "Um" He spoke while glancing to Brandon – who also stood looking at the same doorway, "Coach?" He called – stopping his mentor from walking towards the lockers. Certain he had Roman's attention, the young boy pointed to the staircase.

Roman followed where Jesse now motioned to – the sight rapidly increasing his heart rate as he did. For a few seconds he merely looked without much thought behind the calmness now saturated into his facial features, seemingly content with taking in what his eyes beheld. It was hard – seeing what his eyes laid upon – for Roman to simply put aside the nostalgia that now plagued him with a ravenous hunger. Indeed, there was the obvious. It had, after all, been nine excruciatingly long years. However, given that there was never any real time limit, the honest way to put what Roman now felt would be to simply mention that it had been a very, very long time since he last saw Dean Ambrose standing at the top of those steps. And, in the vein of such a heart-wrenching realization, truth be told, there were the days - when the pain had grown too much - that he spent the time force-feeding himself the belief that he would never be privy to such a sight again.

Not until now, when a very real Dean Ambrose stood at the summit of a very real flight of stairs – nine years later.

"Dean" He called coolly as the man in question began his descent. "Are the boys disturbing you?"

Dean shook his head, as his eyes drifted momentarily to the children currently sparring in the center of a four sided ring. "Football was always your thing, yet you've become a wrestling Coach." He looked back to the older man with a small smile on his face, "It suits you though."

Roman chuckled lightly as Dean joined him outside the ring. The blonde laxly placed his hands into the deep pockets of his jeans, as his boorish eyes ran over the happenings inside the squared circle. Reigns kept a tender eye on Dean's profile – more so on the close-fitting T-Shirt which showcased defined muscles that had not been there the last time both men stood in this building – before inhaling deeply as he crossed his hands over his chest.

"I still play football every now and again. It's got a special place in my heart, so I could never really give it up." A warm smile hit his face, melting Dean as the blonde took a quick glance at it. "But," His smile slowly receded, "after Dad passed, the desire to continue his legacy outweighed the dreams I had of winning the SuperBowl."

Dean looked at the older man with a tinge of sadness doused in his eyes. "I'm sorry." Blue eyes soon carted away towards the floor as Dean hunched ever so slightly to the returning heaviness of his shoulders. "When did he…" He choked to the question, feeling ashamed for even asking.

"Eight years ago." Roman spoke calmly, considering the choice topic. "He always had heart problems like his brother, so he was always saying that his time was coming soon." He scoffed lightly as his expression softened to the silent memory, "He went for countless surgeries, but they just reset the clock. They didn't make him any better. I wanted to seek other treatments, but he had enough of the prodding and poking." Roman drew in a deep breath as he focused a rather harsh stare onto the boys' wrestling in the ring. The action brought back Dean's attention to him. "I pulled the plug, and took up the title of Coach here shortly afterwards."

For a moment, Ambrose found himself stuck at a crossroads. Inside, he knew that doing or saying anything beyond this point would be reckless even for someone who didn't truly believe there could ever be such a thing. After all, Roman's father was all the man had left in this world to call 'family' considering the older man's history. A dead mom, a gangster brother, and an unhealthy father. All three of the people who conceived and raised Roman Reigns left him one after the other – leaving just this old place and an old practice for Roman to call his own. The thought of what walls Roman had to build to keep himself from falling into despair was heart-breaking enough. However, the realization that the older man had to do that – and more – all alone made Dean feel sick to his stomach. The young blonde found it near impossible to not conjure up images in his mind where Roman needed a simply shoulder to cry on, or an ear for sympathy or even a voice to say that everything would be okay – and he was nowhere around to fill that need. Rather, as Dean thought about it, Roman had to learn in his own way to bury all the emotions he should have been allowed to feel and express, and when the stress became too much to handle…Dean couldn't stop himself from imagining the active role Seth Rollins would have had in that part.

It was this very thought that put Dean at the hilt of his cross roads. On one hand, he could resign to himself the very obvious fact that doing anything to ease Roman's pain now would simply be driving home the fact that he was nine years too late. This hand reminded him that Seth Rollins was here, playing the role that he damn well threw away the day he turned his back on this town. The other hand, however, showcased a very different string of thought. On this hand, Dean understood the fact that yes he was late, and yes he had abandoned Roman, and yes Seth Rollins was in the picture, however for the initial and the second Dean knew he would have to spend the rest of his life atoning for. As for the final, Seth Rollins, Dean soon realized that although the young man had been there when Roman needed someone, he was not here now when Roman needed him. Rather, in that position stood Dean Ambrose. And the blonde felt it more than justified to fulfill that role.

Roman tensed a bit in surprise to the sudden feel of arms around him. He quickly looked down to find the blonde hugging him from his left side, and warmed to the gentle feel of Dean's touch. Afraid to ruin the moment, Roman simply smiled and whispered a quiet 'thank you' – content with allowing the moment to simply come to its more natural end. Upon hearing Roman's gentle words, Dean smiled happily as he took in the accomplished feeling that rode the raw ends of his nerves, before finally choosing to let go – having noticed that Roman would not be hugging back.

"Alright guys." Roman spoke to catch the boys' attention, "Five minutes are up. Pack it up and let's get you home."

"Coach, c'mon." Jesse protested as he stood up from the mat, "We were just getting started."

"Yeah." Brandon spoke as he leaned against the ropes, "'Sides, it not like our folks even notice we're gone."

To the apathetic truth, Roman simply ran his hands through his slicked back ponytail, before taking in a deep breath so as to offset whatever words of comfort he wanted to deliver.

"Time to go." Came through with no room for argument as he walked towards the door, shoving it open with enough force to drive the steel harshly against the uncaring brick wall.

Dean watched Roman's departure in silence, before looking back to the two boys who had now reluctantly exited the ring. "Are you the only two he coaches?"

Brandon looked over his shoulder, before glancing to his left to look at Jesse. With his attention focused squarely on the unpacking of his locker, Jesse chimed in with a reply. "There used to be a lot more kids around here, but" He paused to draw his light green eyes over to the blonde stood a few feet away, "folk started leaving this dust bucket of a town for the lights of the city, and before you knew it, they're only a handful of kids with even less parents."

"It's not like we chose to come here." Brandon chimed in as he slung his bag diagonally over his shoulder and chest. "Jess and I don't have real parents. A lot of kids here don't have real parents. When we met Coach, we were scuffling against the owners of the general store. We had to tried to rob them, but it didn't end so well." He smiled lightly, "Coach came by and put a headlock on both of us. When we came to, he had paid for whatever we had stolen and told us that we owed him. Coming here and doing wrestling is our way of paying him back."

Dean chuckled a bit as he recalled how little Roman's attitude and general outlook on what 'pay back' stood for had changed. The young boy's story seemed to mirror his own, with only a few participants changing. Back then, he was just a teen, but his attitude of invincibility and don't care ruled him with an iron fist. That kind of lifestyle and thinking got him into a lot of trouble that almost always ended with fists drawn and blood spilled. Roman didn't show up until the worst was about to happen, and like these kids, the older man simply took Dean in his famous headlock, knocking the blonde out cold. By the time Dean awoke to see a world no longer blinded by rage, he found Roman sitting next to him with bruises all over his face and arms. The older man didn't say what exactly happened whilst Dean laid unconscious, but the badly injured group of boys who filed into the waiting room of the clinic painted a pretty clear picture for him. It took a few days, but Roman soon returned after healing from a few broken ribs and bruising, and immediately took it upon himself to dictate to Dean that the blonde had owed him for taking the beating he would have been subject to at the hands of the seven man gang. Rude by nature, teenager Dean did not take it upon himself to be moved in any way by Roman's bravado. Rather, the blonde spent a majority of time trying to avoid the older man. However, Roman was insistent, and kept chipping away at the cracked shield Dean had long since created around himself. There wasn't necessarily one particular day when Dean realized he had fallen hard for Roman Reigns. However, by the time that realization dawned on him, Roman had already took ownership of his heart.

"Let's go guys!" Roman shouted from the door – bringing the attention of all three men in the room. Both Brandon and Jesse headed through the door, while Dean stood looking at the older man. "You too Dean."

_No thanks. I'll stay here._ Were the words that almost slipped out of Dean Ambrose's mouth, as his overbearing logic continued to dictate to him just how comfortable he was allowed to get. The near slip-up caused a slight hesitation in Dean that was mercifully missed by Roman – who had taken that very moment to look away at something past the wall. Nevertheless, the blonde found it in himself to get past his transgression and take the necessary steps forward.

Without wasting any further time, Dean walked briskly through the door to spot the large, white Dodge Ram single cab truck sitting parallel to the sidewalk. Both Brandon and Jesse had already made themselves at home in the bed of the truck, while Dean slipped into the passenger side – watching through the window as Roman took care to lock the door. The truck slightly buckled as Roman took his seat behind the steering wheel, before shutting the door. The truck drove forward with a subtle _oomph_ from the engine. The majority of the town passed by in silence as the truck roared on over the long stretch of lonely road.

Through his passenger side window, Dean watched as the open fields of the no-name town slipped by in all their natural glory. He began to drift away into his memories of the places he had been, and the things he had come across while there, before deciding with a small smile that nowhere compared to where he was right now – because where he was had Roman Reigns. The drive ended at the cusp of a long dirt trail that led to a distant set of farm houses. Jesse and Brandon hopped out of the truck, bid their Coach goodbye, and quickly ran up the dirt road in a childish game of racing. With his hand set on the back of Dean's seat, Roman quickly put the truck in a three point turn and head back down the long strip of road.

The drive back was just as peaceful as it had been at the start. Noise began to the fill the cabin once Roman let down his window, and air began to pile in with a few words of its own. Dean soon followed suit and let down his window – feeling the kick of wild wind as it flew into his face, tousling his curly hair as it did. Seas of greenery passed them by on their way back to the heart of the town, and the sound and smell of pure nature put Dean into another long winded trance that set a calm smile on his face that was seemingly hard to get rid of.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" Dean looked over his shoulder to spot Roman's lingering glance right as it whisked away back towards the road ahead.

"Yeah." He spoke in a low voice – turning his blue eyes back to the scenery outside his window. "It's like another world out here." His smile brightened as he spoke, "I can't take my eyes off it."

Without prior warning, Dean was flung forward as the truck came to an abrupt stop – having caught a hard hold of some loose gravel and grass on the side of the road. Checking for a moment that his body hadn't been flung halfway through the windshield, Dean turned around quickly to face Roman – questions bubbling at the tip of his lips. However, no words were allowed to escape, as in that very space between surprise and logic, Roman had wedged himself in the grey area and long since taken those pursed lips in his own.

The kiss was as sudden as the stop, but it lasted a much longer time. The first ray of emotion to flood Dean Ambrose was understandably shock. To suddenly feel Roman's hands holding his face and Roman's lips and tongue all over his, Dean sat a bit outside himself for a brief second as he tried to dig himself a place of refuge that would become necessary once Roman's mind finally returned. His distasteful logic returned with a slight vengeance – having been ignored these past few hours - reminding the blonde of what he had given up with every moment he spent lip locked with Roman in uncontrollable passion. A small part of him was able to ignore the lashes of his logic, but his off-guard emotions could not contain themselves with thoughts of regret and overbearing love – and in no time at all, the walls of his brave fortress came crashing down.

Beneath his fingertips, Roman felt the heat rise on Dean Ambrose's face the longer he kissed the younger man. However, in a few short seconds, water began to slip in between the cracks of his fingers and Dean's soft cheeks. To the strange texture, Roman pulled away only to find his eyes set on a tear-ridden face. Instantly, Roman's heart sunk as he worried over the cause of Dean's tears. The man in question was not sobbing as he did upon first arriving to this town. Rather, he was silently looking back at Roman with a pained expression and tears staggering drunkenly down his face. The sight placed Roman in a strange predicament, as he knew he felt sorry for making the blonde cry, but at the same time, he wasn't going to apologize for kissing him – as it was something he had wanted to do for a very, very long time.

"God." He gently rubbed the man's cheeks with the tips of his thumbs, before placing a pair of light kisses on both sides of the man's face – holding him to his chest after doing so. "I never thought I'd see you again." His voice broke through heavily, "I missed you so fucking much."

Being buried face first in Roman's broad chest did nothing to help Dean's predicament as the very scent of the older man pushed forth more tears from his eyes. Nevertheless, amidst the now burning sensation in his eyes, Dean Ambrose was happy, and so in that moment, the younger man brought his own hands around Roman's shoulder and held on as tightly as he could. "I thought about you every single day, Roman." He spoke with the same fluidity as his tears. "I…I" His voice cracked to the pressure. "I'm so sorry!" His muffled voice bellowed as loudly as it could in Roman's upper chest, "I never wanted to leave you, but you were…and I was…" He choked once more as tears fell more rapidly down his face, "And the years….the years kept piling up and I lost the guts to come back here and see you." His fingers bent further as they dug into Roman's back. "I thought you'd hate me, or you'd forget me, so I kept on running away. I told myself that you wouldn't wait because I hadn't given you anything to wait on." His voice ran lower as heavy emotions flooded from him, "I'm so sorry Roman. I'm so sorry."

Beneath the fabric of his shirt and the large pectoral muscles, Roman felt the rapid drumming of his heart as Dean's words worked their way into his very bloodstream. Feeling the man's desperation, Roman held Dean tighter – partly afraid to let him go, for fear of losing him once again. "I'm here because you gave me plenty to wait for Dean." He placed a gentle kiss in the mess of hair sat atop Dean's head, "This time around, I won't ever let you leave. I'm begging you to stay with me." With a tender force, Roman lifted Dean's face and held it in between his hands – taking note of the overall redness and puffiness of Dean's face as the tears continued to flow uncontrollably. "I love you, so stay with me." He leaned forward and placed another kiss on the blonde's wet lips, "Please."

Unable to trust himself to not break down beyond this pitiful state, Dean nodded as best he could as he promised within his mind that he would do as Roman had asked. With another gentle pull forward, Dean felt himself being locked in another deep kiss that weakened him by the second. At the end of it, he slipped back into the cup of Roman's shoulder, and hugged the man close – breathing a sigh of relief when the older man pulled him even closer.


	6. Meeting

Grey blue eyes cut from winter-stricken gems peered about the small living space as if to break down the components to the bare bones. Truly aged hardwood floors ran the entirety of the space, a good-sized balcony stared back through a pair of glass doors, and in between that short-distance run stood furnishings that perfectly etched out the name of what piece of living space they occupied – for example, a three seat couch set in front of a television designated the living room, while a simple table with simple chairs set apart the dining room. Give and take, nothing much of the interior had truly changed, however with his eyes baring down the space with soul-piercing intensity, it became clear that his original conclusion was woefully flawed. Something had changed about the space. It wasn't as cold and as sterile as he once remembered it. In place of that solitary feeling, warmth had made its home here amongst the unchanged furnishings, and its source was undeniably Seth Rollins.

It's rude to stare, was something his mother used to say, but right now he felt unable to conjure up the mechanism needed to pry his eyes away from Seth. The young man had taken it upon himself to get his guest a cold drink of water – having been told 'no' to the first option of beer – and stood in the kitchen pouring the pitcher of cold liquid down the gullet of an empty glass. This wasn't the first time he had been so completely hypnotized by Seth Rollins, but just like the first time, he could not decipher what about Seth Rollins truly captivated him. He started from the top. Slightly wet hair with its quarter-blonde three-quarters-brunette had been scoped up into a messy bun atop his head – leaving the back of his neck exposed to both the rogue drops of water that ran down it, and the watchful eyes of the man sat in the chair behind him. Further down, glassy eyes watched as narrow shoulders and arms moved in sync beneath the fabric of a fitted grey T-Shirt. Back muscles twisted ever so slightly to a harmonic tune that carried no real lyrics. By the time his eyes made it further down past Seth's slim waist, the boy had turned around to stop the visual assault.

"Here you go Randy" Seth spoke chirpily as he placed the glass atop the coaster set in front of the older brunette, "Nice n' cold." He smiled whilst taking a seat in the chair across Randy.

The older man looked to the cool liquid –momentarily watching as drops of condensed water slipped down the exterior of the glass – before quickly indulging himself with a drink. The icy liquid quickly hit the length of his esophagus and immediately shot to the places that had been near charred by the heat of his desires. In a few short moments, and many quick drinks later, the brunette felt controlled enough to return himself to the situation at hand.

"Wow." Seth exclaimed as Randy placed down the now empty glass. "You must have been really thirsty."

Randy scoffed lightly as he leaned back in the wooden chair – exasperated with having drank so much so quickly. "It's hot for a late summer day." He grinned lightly, "And it's not helping any that I'm in this place."

Seth stared at the older man with a sliver of understanding quickly sieging his brown eyes, before looking down at his own glass of water. "I don't like being alone." His index finger dove head first into the cold liquid and gave it a quick stir – shifting the blocks of ice as it did. "Especially here."

Randy watched as Seth took his finger from the inside of the glass, and quickly sucked the water right off it. The older man felt the blood immediately rush through his veins, and soon distracted himself with the bit of sadness that had stemmed from the young man's words. "Look, Roman's probably just out doing some errands. He'll be back soon." He gave a light smile as Seth lifted his head, "Besides, it's not like you couldn't defend yourself if anyone tried anything."

Seth spoke softly in response to Randy's words, "That depends on the person who's trying anything." His eyes fell back down to the glass of water, "Anyways, I want you to stay with me until Ro gets back. Whenever that'll be." He mumbled the last part with a short pout.

A small sense of peace, whilst in the heart of what could be considered the lion's den, came over Randy's entire being the longer he stared at Seth's childish expression. "I think I should leave" His hand clenched atop the table as he forced himself to stand. Seth quickly looked up at the older man, forcing Randy to smile in an effort to put at ease the troubled look surfacing on the young man's face, "Roman won't take kindly to me being here alone with you."

"No!" Seth exclaimed ahead of himself – startling both himself and Randy in the process – before grabbing hold of the hand Randy had left on the table. "You have to stay here until Ro comes back." His expression softened to the vulnerability in his eyes, "I won't let you leave."

Randy scoffed to the brash statement, "And how do you plan to keep me here, Seth?" He asked knowing the answer he wanted to hear – and knowing the consequences of that desired answer – but still being unwilling to step in and stop the oncoming reply.

Seth thought about the question, before standing from his own chair. His hands still held onto Randy's stray hand before bringing it to the side of his face and resting it there. Randy instinctively pulled back his arm in an effort to separate himself from Seth's warmth, but the young man held onto him tightly forcing his fingertips to take in every contour of Seth's cheek and jaw. Somewhere deep in his mind, Randy heard the all too familiar sound of his logic shattering. It was like glass breaking in the darkness of a distance that stood far behind him, and it made the older man incapable of not turning to have a look. It was that move that spelt the end for Randy Orton, as no sooner had Seth kept his hand prisoner, did the older man lean forward to the beat of his own desires.

The door opened with the distinct clicking of a lock being removed from its brace. Before the first hinge broke open to the inward movement of the front door, Randy had pulled away from Seth – finding it much easier to do so as the younger man had released his grip on Orton's hand. The blonde/brunette in question quickly disposed of the vulnerable expression that had once plagued his face and drawn Randy in, and replaced it with a look of complete overjoy. The table shook a bit as Seth lightly tapped it on his way to the now open door. Randy's hand looked back at him from mid-air across the table, as logic slowly pieced itself together – forcing him to push aside whatever trance he had been subject to for a poorly glued composed version of himself.

"Ro~!" Seth sing-songed the name as he immediately ran into the arms of the large Samoan who had stepped through the now open front door. The older man clearly had not expected Seth to run into him, and stumbled back a bit only to feel a pair of steadying hands hold up his back. "Ro, I missed you~" Seth spoke as he held on tightly to the older man, "Where were you~?"

Roman quickly placed his arms around Seth's waist as he hugged the man tightly, "I was at your school looking for you." He pulled away from the younger man with a confused smile on his face, "Why are you home already? How—"

In the furthermost corners of his peripherals, Roman spotted the tall, lean frame of the short haired brunette stood against the chair of his dining room set. From behind the gathering at the front door, Dean watched as Roman quickly pushed Seth aside – almost forcing the young man to collide with Ambrose – and quickly charged over towards the man standing in the dining room area. Once in range, Reigns took a half-leap forward with a cocked right hand set with missle-like clairvoyance at the targeted brunette.

"Ro!" Seth shouted to put the brakes on Roman's attack – forcing the older man to hold his well-gassed punch a few inches from the brunette's face.

Despite being the target of what would have been a rather swift and painful attack, the brunette in question did no more than simply lift his cold eyes off Roman's face, and put it over the man's shoulder so as to stare momentarily at a very worried looking Seth Rollins. Roman watched keenly as the brunette's expression cracked to the sight – and seeing such a vulnerability merely put him over the edge.

With the hand he had intended to strike with, Roman quickly grabbed hold of the brunette's shirt – tightening his fingers in its fabric as he drew himself closer to the expressionless face he had once wanted to hit.

"What the fuck are you doing in my house, Randy?" He snarled with ferocity, "You're not welcome here!"

From beneath the shadows of his brow, Randy's winter cold eyes peered deep into Roman's fiery set in a never-ending battle of ice versus fire, with neither man willing to back down.

"He took me home." Roman looked over his shoulder to find Seth standing with his hands rigidly to his side, and nervous fingers clasping onto the ends of his pants. "I was leaving school and I saw him, and I asked for a ride home." His head lowered as Roman stared at him with painful disbelief. "I invited him in here because you weren't home, and I didn't want to be by myself."

To the feel of his hand being forcefully shoved back to him, Roman looked back to find Randy now released from his grip. The brunette quickly tugged at his shirt's material in hopes of straightening out the deep wrinkles, however the action proved fruitless as the damage was seemingly woven into the very fibers of the shirt itself. With a heavy sigh, Randy threw away his high hopes for the shirt, and looked to Roman.

"I'll take my leave now." He spoke in a low voice.

"Yeah." Roman spoke as he took a step aside, "You do that."

Randy jeered at the bitterness being flung his way, before taking the time to saunter over to the front door. He glanced to Seth in passing – feeling the pit of his stomach collapse when the brunette did not glance back – before stopping momentarily upon spotting Dean. The blonde looked up at Randy with a guarded expression. To the fighter stance, Randy simply gave a light chuckle, before continuing out the door and down the stairs. The loud bang of the steel door closing below signaled that the brunette had left the premises entirely.

For a long stretch of time, silence hung above the room entailing all three men. It hung there until it became stagnant, and once at that level of stillness, the silence in the room began to suffocate. Unable to bear the pain of no oxygen, Roman spoke up with a gravelly voice that felt as hurt as he looked.

"I told you to stay away from him Seth. How many times did I tell you to stay away from him? How many times…" The younger man flinched to Roman's words, and further tightened his hold on the sides of his pants. The older man drew a heavy hand down the length of his face as he turned to face the younger man, "Did you skip classes so he could take you home?"

From his position in the background, Dean watched as Seth tensed to the question. The subtle motion did not go unnoticed by the interrogator – who walked towards Seth and gently placed both hands on the young man's slumped shoulders.

"Seth" He called with an undiscernible voice, "Answer me."

Seth continued to keep his focus on the ground and bit into the flesh of his lower lip to stop whatever set of words he wanted to say in that moment.

The reluctance shown by Rollins added a gallon of gasoline to the fire that seeing Randy had lit inside of Roman Reigns. "Seth!" He barked, causing the younger man to flinch much more visibly than he did previously. The shout even managed to startle the one person not a part of this conversation in Dean Ambrose – who found himself slightly terrified by the anger present on Roman's face. "Did you skip classes to be with Randy? Did he tell you to skip classes? Did he force you to do that?" Rollins tensed to the point of being unable to breathe – evident in the loudness and rapidness of the air entering and leaving his body. "Answer me now Seth!"

Finding the strength from an unknown source, the younger man instantly pushed away from Roman – forcing the older man to clumsily find his momentarily shifted equilibrium. A short moment of uncomfortable silence, moshed in with the sounds of heavy breathing, clambered over the men in the living space in an attempt to make a home here.

"Seth—" Roman called with far more tenderness in his voice than was present before.

"I don't have any afternoon classes!" Seth shouted to put a stop to the ambiance Roman was trying to create, "I told you that already! You would have remembered if you even gave a damn!" Roman's expression quickly turned to apologetic the moment Seth rose his teary eyes to him. "Why do you always assume everything is Randy's fault? He's not a bad guy! He makes me my favorite coffee in my favorite cup every day! He makes the world's best pancakes just the way I like them! He listens to me and gives me advice!" His face molded to the shape that his immense hurt was taking. "Why do you hate him so much? He didn't do anything wrong!"

"I—" Roman paused for a moment to look away in a sliver of shame. "I just can't trust him."

A heavy weight fell atop Seth Rollins once Roman's words hit his ears. Immediately, he found himself unable to speak, but pushed past the inability with the knowledge that he simply had to. "Then trust me." Slipped through a soft voice, "Randy is not a bad guy."

"I don't want him in this house, Seth." Roman spoke through clenched teeth, as his eyes lifted to Seth, "This is _our_ space. _Our_ home." He quickly signaled to the area between them both. "He's not allowed to be here."

Seth took a deep breath in as his jaw clenched to the slow running tears dropping from his eyes. "But Dean is." He spoke coldly. To his name, Dean looked to Seth finding that the younger man had not once taken his eyes off Roman during his icy delivery of what was quickly justified as the truth. "I'm going to bed."

"Seth!" Roman called, only to have the sound of Seth's bedroom door slamming shut cut him off mid-way. The older man brought back the arm he had flung forward in an attempt to grab onto Seth, and curled his hand into a tight fist. "Damn it!" In an instant, his balled fist found the top of the nearby sofa, and struck it with lightning quickness and thunderous force.

Another stagnant air of silence slipped into the heavy atmosphere and slowly fogged the room. Dean took a short moment to close the open front door, and stayed facing the door long after he had turned the deadlock.

"Was he telling the truth?"

Roman glanced to Dean for a quick moment – taking in the downed expression on Dean's side-profile – before looking back at the sofa. "Yes."

Dean smiled lightly as he looked down the length of the door – heaving a heavy sigh as he did. "You can't blame him, though. I mean, I would feel the same as he does, if I were in his shoes."

"You're special, Dean." He spoke with a husky tone of voice, "Randy is…" He sighed, "I don't trust him. I don't want him near Seth."

Blue eyes looked to Roman, "Who is he?" Roman looked to Dean, finding the man wearing just as much perplexity on his face as his tone dished out. "Who is Seth Rollins?"

"He's—" He stopped and rigidly ran his hands through his long hair, loosening the ponytail as he did. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed." He headed towards his room, stopping at the hilt of the door. "I'm sorry, but could you take the couch tonight? The way I am now...I won't be able to sleep on it."

"Yeah." Dean replied calmly – despite his innards being the complete opposite. "That's okay."

"Thank you."

With that, the door opened allowing Roman to enter his bedroom – closing with a light click as he did. Dean looked to the couch and smiled weakly at it.


	7. Rude Awakening

In the breathtakingly vast distance beyond the glass doors of a modest-sized balcony sat the glow of a hedonistic sun clouded mostly by its own stage of infancy – a consistent side effect of the Earth's slow moving orbit, which put the burning ball of fire in a time most commonly known as dawn. From his spot at the small dining table, eyes brightened with a shine of morning coffee – black with no sugar – stared out beyond the large glass doors and took in the glory of the morning as it yawned and stretched to ward off the lingering hold of a rather uncomfortable night. With a large index finger clutched around the open handle of his coffee mug, he took another drink of the bitter-tasting liquid and forced from himself any protracted desire to return to his bedchamber.

It was a laughable irony – him fighting the urge to sleep and all – considering that for the past seven years he had honed the ability to wake up, make black coffee, prepare a slice of toast with butter, sit at the table and be done in time to watch as the morning sun began its ascent. Yet, despite his fine-tuned skills of being the poster boy of early birds, there was still the raging wish to sleep that no amount of black coffee or now visible daylight could drown out. Nevertheless, uphill as his battle may seem, there was victory in his war the longer he spent ignoring the pokes and prods of sleep. Satisfied with the feeling of being more completely awake than before, he took another drink of his coffee – relishing in the taste of his own personal victory – only to put down the near-empty mug and lose himself in the view of the early morning.

The night had been terrible. Inside his mind, voices – varying differently in both tone and emotion – clambered loudly over one another in an effort to take control of his subconscious. One voice childishly sang the lyrics of the Power Rangers' theme song all from a pair of lips curled into a smile. Recalling that moment, he could not help but reflect in his own way the utter happiness he felt whilst sitting there listening to that voice as the television ran a muck with the Saturday morning program. As the night progressed however, the tune turned darker and became far more distorted than he cared to think about, and in no time at all silence hit his mind for the briefest of seconds. Once the time was up, a barrage of voices flew in like pressurized steam bursting from the gap in a pipe, and soon had him tossing madly beneath his covers – so much to the point that the covers came off. As his mind tussled about in an effort to grab hold of a fleeting sanity, he began to decipher the various voices and immediately put them into categories. The loudest voice was his own, shouting at Dean, at his brother, at his father, at the doctors, at Randy, and at Seth. When he came to the sad terms of how truly frightening he was in times like those, he finally managed to silence that voice to allow himself the room to think. Another loud voice barked into the ears of his subconscious and echoed violently off the walls. The voice, he realized, belonged to Seth. It was the voice he had heard in their most recent argument, and it hurt standing there silently whilst listening to it go from scared, to hurt, to angry. As he listened intently to Seth shouting at the liquid walls of his mind, a presence began to creep along the back of his neck – leaving him with a deathly cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. With his head turned to place his attention over his shoulder, Seth's voice soon disappeared into the darkness – becoming harder and harder to hear the further away it went. By the time his back was turned to where Seth's voice had originated, there was nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat. Beyond the walls of his subconscious, he spotted the slightly blurred silhouette of a Dean Ambrose. To help clear the view, he began to walk closer to the blonde, only to hear his heart beat grow louder and more rapid. For a moment, he stopped in fear of giving himself cardiac arrest, however the faintest sound pierced through the murky liquid of his mind and decided for him his next move.

"Roman."

Was all it took for him to continue his walk towards Dean. However, his heart kept racing, speeding up the closer he got to Ambrose, until he reached close enough to touch the blonde and his heart immediately stopped. Inside, he felt his lungs grabbing for air – grasping at the thinning straws in hopes to revive his body – as his brain short-circuited almost immediately. Pain set in much later and came in short bursts, before his body went cold and collapsed to the space beneath his feet. He fell for a long time, all the while looking with wide eyes that had not yet lost life, until his body hit the bottom with a resounding thud. As life fled from him, he began to feel what lay beneath him – soil. The voices started again, this time a lot lower and harder to discern. Using his furthermost peripherals, he spotted the vision of himself shoveling in topsoil onto his own dead flesh. The sound of a solemn pastor reciting a verse about eternal life could barely be heard over the loud church bells playing in the background. Regardless, he could still hear the bone-chilling sound of the steel shovel digging into the loose soil and tossing it towards his body. Frightened of what was occurring, his heart quickly restarted and soon he felt himself regaining the energy needed to function. However, no sooner had life returned to him, did the last pile of dirt fall atop him – burying him in the cold dirt below.

"Morning Roman." The gravelly voice in the distance easily startled Roman from his reminiscent state – a happenstance he was quite joyful about considering where his mind had chosen to wonder off to. He turned slightly to watch as the half-asleep man shuffled over to the table – taking a desperate seat ahead of him. "How are you awake so early?" He spoke with his hand digging into his left eye so as to rub the sleep out of it.

Roman smiled slightly at the sight, "I'm a morning person." He leaned back comfortably into the cup of the chair. "Force of habit I suppose."

"Morning person? Since when?" The younger man scoffed as he tended to evicting the sleep still hidden in the wells of his right eye, "In all the years I've known you, your idea of 'morning' was five o clock in the afternoon."

"Well, when Seth came along, some things had to change." His eyes drifted slightly downward towards the tiny bit of black liquid at the base of his mug – missing as he did, the sliver of hurt streamlining across the blonde's face, "Plus, I have to get up earlier than you to make sure you don't disappear on me again."

The younger man heaved a long breath as he looked to the area over his left shoulder. _I won't leave you._ The words were right there on the tip of his tongue, having known that this moment now called strictly for them and their heart-felt delivery. However, his lips stayed shut, forcing the words he should have said back down the slimy gullet of his throat. Once he was certain they would not resurface – and after getting his eyes filled with the view of a space he knew all too well – he slowly returned his blue eyes to Roman.

"How did I get in your room?" Roman looked up at him – staring without a strand of shyness. "I mean… I remember I was sleeping on the couch, and then I wake up and I'm in your bed. If I was sleepwalking, then I—"

"I carried you there." Roman answered with his arms now folded across his chest.

"You didn't have to." He smiled weakly, whilst silently hoping that the grogginess not yet dispatched from his vocal cords had masked the emotions riding his voice. "I don't mind the couch."

"I hate sleeping alone, Dean. You know I hate sleeping alone. Yet, no one's slept beside me in that bed for nine years now, because I couldn't risk losing your scent to someone else's." His eyes sharpened as they peered deep into the azure color of Dean's. "When you returned, despite what I really wanted to do, I told myself that I'd give you the space you needed to get comfortable with being here with me." He took a deep breath, "Last night, I was upset over the argument, and I needed to cool my head. But, no matter what I did, I couldn't shake the fact that you were just outside my door. I couldn't sleep knowing that you were so close." Without warning, Roman leaned forward, and reached out with his right arm – placing his right hand on the side of Dean's face. "So close that I could reach out and touch you." As his fingers moved to caress the skin and short stubble beneath them, a relaxed smile overcame Roman's face – brightening his aura instantaneously. "I was outside myself when I came to carry you to the room, but once I had you beside me, I was able to quiet down the noise in my mind." Slipping back down into the utmost comfort of the chair, Roman's hand slipped back away from Dean's face, stopping once it reached the older man. "I'm glad that you're here."

A rapid-fire red quickly spread across Dean's cheeks and soon encapsulated the majority of his face. The feeling of embarrassment, coupled with his rapid heartbeat, forced Dean's eyes to quickly fall to the table top as he tried in vain to calm the raging sea of happiness that struck him like a viral fever.

"Me too." He replied sheepishly, only to wish he had said something far less off-handedly as two words. However, as his eyes managed to corkscrew their way back up to face Roman, the expression residing on the older man's face told Dean that two words were more than enough. The sight in itself made way for a desire built up in the younger man. Suddenly, his eyes could focus on nothing more than the man sat ahead of him, and his mind could only keep focus on his desire to kiss said man. Leaning forward in a likened state of hypnosis, Dean allowed himself to be pulled by whatever gravitational forces had appeared in the space set between himself and Roman.

The door opened with enough force to cause the protruding handle to hit the wall behind it. The subsequent bang that came about sent a jolt through both men – forcing Dean to fumble back into a more natural position in his seat, and Roman to stand to his feet as though his seat where on fire.

"Seth." He called with a slightly nervous tone, before loudly clearing his throat so as to ward off the light-weight tension. "I was just about to make breakfast, and I—"

Roman's words were quickly cut short as the young man in question made a sharp turn and headed through the nearby front door. A moment of shell shock hit Roman, before he immediately sprinted forward – bolting out the door behind Seth.

For a countless while, Dean sat staring at the still open front door as his mind worked over itself repeatedly like a never-ending knot. The instinctual feeling of warmth and overall joy quickly transcended into a darker state that had no real name or title. It was like bile, or stomach acid, and it had soon infected all the places Roman's words had touched. Logic began to build atop his sudden mood, speaking with a split tongue that spat on him with words of discouragement and the always-there—

_What did you think? _

_What were you hoping for? _

_I told you, you don't belong here. _

_This isn't your place anymore._

_Leave before this breaks you._

Logic held on to his mind with nine inch nails – digging in ever deeper into the places where hope resided in an effort to weed it out – only to patch into a memory he had somehow stored away in the blind spot of his mind. The memory of momentarily floating only to land on a soft, cushiony surface. It was due to the change in environment that Dean had woken up for a moment, but what kept his eyes open for a long while was the sight of Roman's sleeping face mere inches from him. To feel the calm breaths of Reigns flowing briefly over his face, and to hear the gentle beats of a quieting heart subjected to the after effects of a deep slumber – Dean began to return to his former state of happiness, finding in that memory the nostalgia he needed as proof that going back to how it was, was easier than he once believed.

With a violent shove, Dean pushed away from the table, and headed over towards the front door. He stepped into the doorway only to stop short of the first step upon hearing the voice of Roman shouting in agony at the younger man whose arm he was holding onto.

"…just hear me out Seth!" Slipped in to Dean's now listening ears from Roman's baritone voice – forcing the blonde to hug the shadows behind the door. "I love you!" The words hit Dean like a bolt of lightning. "That's never going to change no matter what, okay?"

"You say that Ro, but he's still here!" Were the words that came barking back amongst what sounded like a cracked voice. "You tell me this is our space, but he's in it, and you don't even care about how that makes me feel!"

"Seth, please" Roman pleaded gently, "I care about you. I really really do. For the longest time, you were all I had—"

"But now he's here so you don't need me anymore?" Seth spoke back in a voice tainted by pain.

"No, no that's not true Seth. I need you. I'll always need you." Replied Roman – further punching a hole in Dean's now damaged heart. "Seth please." Dean leaned forward a bit to grant himself sight, finding Roman's hands placed squarely on Seth's cheeks. "Give me the chance to explain." The older man drew the younger man to him, kissing him atop the head as he did. Air compressed viciously inside Dean as his chest cavity collapsed in an instant. "I'll take you to school. We'll talk then okay?"

Seth nodded meekly as he spoke, "Okay."

To the reply, Roman quickly turned on his heels and ran back up the stairs – skipping a few in his long strides. Completely outside himself, Dean awkwardly shifted towards the kitchen – stopping at the table to pick up the dishes left behind by Roman.

"Dean" Roman called, forcing Ambrose's shoulders to tense as his back quickly faced the older man. "I'm heading out to drop Seth off at school." The sound of rattling keys being picked up from the table near the door was as soothing Dean's ear as the sound of nails on a chalkboard. "Wait here for me okay?" Not trusting his mouth to something as important as speaking, Dean stiffly nodded his reply. "I'll be back soon."

The door closed with a pronounced click that signaled that the lock had been set in place to hold the door shut. Dean stared at the kitchen wall decorated with cabinets and a few grease spots. His blue eyes set wide as his breathing held for a bit longer. Once a few seconds passed by in deafening silence –providing a certainty that no one would return – Dean's knees quickly gave out, forcing him to clumsily throw the dishes on the table as he passed by on his way to the floor. The mug overturned in the mess and black liquid slowly made its way out and over the edge of the small table – dripping to the floor in a small puddle of itself. His lungs finally caved, and heavy, staggered breaths spilled out rapidly as tears bolted from his eyes down his face. A sickly feeling soon built up inside him and the taste of bile returned – prompting him to quickly cover his mouth in an effort to keep from vomiting. As salty tears mixed in from occasional spit that protruded from his mouth when breathing through his nose alone became far too difficult, a sharp pain entered his chest and slowly descended towards his heart. With each thought of Roman Reigns in that moment, the pain etched closer and spread further, prompting him to seek ironic comfort in the one place he normally found no such thing.

Logic spoke once more. _Don't be so hurt. It's been nine years. He's moved on. You're not his number one anymore._ Dean's sobbing grew as he hunched over to rest his head atop the hard floor. _It's enough, _logic slipped in with a venom-laced tone. _It's enough that he still wants you here. Don't ask for more.  
_

_You don't deserve to ask for more._


	8. Secrets

The trail of smoke slipped upwards into the slightly darkened morning sky – a complete result of the gigantic hoard of cumulous clouds that drifted by ever so slowly to momentarily clot the blue arteries of the sky and suck the light out of the proud sun. Nerves that had once commandeered his entire being whilst he sat withered away in the sofa beyond the door at the top of the stairs, now settled into a false sense of calm similar to the effects of a tranquilizer on a wild lion. Smoking was not necessarily something he enjoyed doing. In fact, he had always hated the smell and taste and lingering stench that accompanied smoking, and singled out smokers even after they had baptized themselves in a sea of Altoids in an attempt to blend in with the non-smokers of the world. He truly hated smoking, but it was a habit he had picked up on his thirteenth birthday, and would still be part of so many years later. Most times when he lit up another Marlboro, he would tell himself that the habit started as a result of his father's doing. With each drag of each slender stick of nicotine, heart-stopping tar, and blood destroying carbon monoxide, he would work hard to convince himself that his alcohol poisoned father and his bad temper was to blame for his susceptibility towards the charms of the cigarette.

Why he kept on smoking was the entire fault of his distant mother.

He didn't remember much about his mother, except for her back. Slim with a tiny waist, fragile shoulders partly covered by a curly mess of dirty blonde hair, and skeletal limbs protruding from thin joints. That was all he could recall about his mother. He had never heard her voice, nor could he remember ever seeing her face. All he truly knew about her was that she took everything her husband dished out to her, and kept away when his fists turned on their children.

At thirteen, when the luring light of the angler in a lone cigarette had dug its claws into his veins, he knew for a certainty that he wanted to live a very short life. However, cowardice that had long evolved into a ravaging, incurable cancer of his very soul, stayed him from the hangman's noose and the butcher's razor, and had him seeking out other ways to end it all. Fighting was a strong outlet, but he was good at taking what he gave, so dying at the bludgeoning fists of someone else was never an option his quick reflexes and high pain tolerance would allow. Instead, having the blood of a drunkard forced his attention to liquor. On his first taste at fifteen, he was immediately shot through with a spear of over-familiarity. It was as though the bitter taste had been committed to his memory since his conception. The bottle quickly took hold of him, and soon made him unable to see anything save his father in his own reflection. In a very short time, he truly contemplated suicide as part of his determination to keep at bay aging and truly becoming the man he despised.

It was right around this time that he met Roman, and quickly after, fell irrecoverably in love the older man. Drinking became a thing of the past the more he hung around Roman and his family. Roman's father was big – even bigger than his own – yet he had a gentle and kind voice that seemed almost angelic in the eyes of a very troubled teen. His mother had a smile that could rival the brightest morning sun, and his older brother – Dwayne – beamed with a deep-rooted tenderness that made it impossible not to bring joy into the lives of the people he spoke to. Days lolled by with the same speed as the clouds now drifting above, and soon he found himself heart-warmed by the sense of family that Roman shared – becoming so engrained in that family that he saw his own home less and less; finding each time he visited, how little life there had changed. However, the world turned inside out the day Roman's mother collapsed. Dad took the truck and drove to the hospital. Mom never came back. A dark cloud soon settled on the Reigns family, and only got worse the night he arrived to the town and watched as Dwayne threw a duffel bag into the bed of his Chevelle SS and drove off into the distance. When Roman eventually spoke on it, he mentioned his brother's name in the past tense – mentioning somewhere in the lowness of his heavy voice that Dwayne had gone and joined a city gang, citing the need to pay the bills as the reason – and made no further comment on the issue.

The tension in his adopted family, and the chaos in his own, made for a wicked circumstance in which Marlboro became his only escape – shy of the death he both desired and feared to commit. Roman often complained about the smell, which brought him in close partnerships with Altoids, but in time Roman came to accept the fact that smoke would always linger about him and nothing would change that. Rather, the larger man simply began to acquire the taste each time they lip locked and joined in intimacy. The calm after the storm soon arrived, and peace seemed to return to the now drastically reduced Reigns family, until the moment he returned home for a visit.

There was an envelope laying cast aside on the front porch. In it was a red letter with the word EVICTED written in bold, black letters. The day was abnormally cold, and a gut feeling – something that would later evolve into his most times overpowering sense of logic – spoke to him in a voice almost too soft to hear. _Don't open the door_. That was the instruction that he had failed that day to adhere to, and immediately regretted doing so once both feet were standing on the wooden floors. The interior of what was once his childhood home looked as though a tornado had swallowed it whole and spat it out in pieces. Items, furniture, and pictures were laid out untidily, and for those items that he did not see, broken windows and a missing back door told him that they were now in the hands of thieves. The house carried a pungent stench of stale vomit mixed in what could be described as rotten flesh. Walking up the stairs and opening the door at the end of the short hallway showcased to his eyes the horrific sight of his pet cat Moxley laying ripped to pieces on his bedroom floor. Looking past the gaping wounds and crushed skull, he could see the patches of missing fur all around her thin body. They were signs of neglect. She had starved, weakened, and in a fight for her life, lost in vicious fashion. Inside, he wanted to blame his parents and his older sibling for not taking care of the one thing he had held close to his heart. However, all the convincing went for broke, as no matter what he tried to tell himself, nothing could shake the truth. And the truth was, he had taken in a stray black cat, fed her, bought her back to health, and then abandoned her without so much as a word. The still night that ensued saw him simply closing the door to the old house and promising solemnly to never return. He walked with a small bag on his back and felt overwhelming sadness and loneliness for the first time in his life. Desperate to relieve himself, his heavy feet began to run – carrying his body as though it were air – until he found himself out of breath and knocking madly on the front door of Roman's home. The door opened, and without thought he flung himself to a confused Roman Reigns, begging and pleading amongst the heavy tears for the older man to make the pain go away. Roman tried hard for his sake, but the Band-Aid quickly fell off, as by the time dawn broke to herald the next day, he was on a bus to the other end of the world.

Having been around Roman for the better part of his teenage years, his smoking had diminished, but it never truly stopped for good. Rather, smoking had turned into his own gaseous version of morphine. Cigarettes and nicotine were the only methods he knew to kill the pain that would plague his heart every time his mind brought back all he had abandoned – from his home, to Moxley, to this town, and worse of them all, Roman. As such, his body had conditioned itself to accept a cigarette so as to provide a temporary sense of calm that enabled him to put one foot forward in situations where running away was truly the better option.

With cigarette in hand, he continued to smoke the day away, but the stick soon grew short forcing him to put it out on the cold concrete next to him. His blue eyes looked from left to right – taking in the low humming bustle of a tiny town that pushed through each day as though it was the last – before choosing to stand to his feet and dust off the back end of his jeans pants as he did. Once he was certain he was clean enough, he took a moment to look across the road at the diner seated on the other side. The sign read 'OPEN' yet for all he could see there was no one in the small restaurant. Curious, he took a moment to think over what he was seeing, before deciding to trot over for a closer look.

At the entrance, he peered in through the large windows, finding the interior completely lifeless, before deciding to take a closer look at the red-and-white sign hung on the inside of the glass door. OPEN. He looked at the breakfast counter and the tables and chairs sitting inside behind the door, before peeking over his shoulder to give a quick eye to the building behind him. The large front door had been shut on his exit, and no one seemed be in view of the place. However, having no key meant that anyone could easily open the door and enter the school and Roman's home with ease. Possibly even the thieves who had ransacked his childhood home. Despite this, the temptation of entering the empty diner proved strong, and soon he had pulled open the door and planted his feet on the tiles of the floor. As the door came to a slow close, a set of chimes rang off loudly behind him – startling him as they did, and forcing him to turn his attention to quickly closing the door.

"What are you doing?" A gravelly voice rolled in from behind, and brought a heavy drop of tension on his shoulders.

"It was taking too long to close." He spoke completely outside himself, whilst turning to face the taller man stood behind the counter. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

"Ha." He stated dryly, with a deadpan expression on his face, "I'm used to disturbances so early in the morning. Especially from people who don't pay." Grey-blue eyes stared at the blonde stood at the door, before flinging his arm out ahead to point to a nearby table-and-chair combo. "Sit. I'll take your order."

"No I—" He paused for a moment having noticed that the brunette had long since turned away to busy himself with the coffee maker. Noticing the room for no argument, he quickly shuffled towards the offered seating area – plopping down comfortably on one of the table's four chairs. "Where's the old lady who used to run this place?" He spoke with an air of casual conversation.

"She's dead." He replied with a dry tone – back still very much turned on his patron. "Or retired." He shrugged, "When folks leave town, all people can really do is speculate."

Silence was his choice return as he decided within himself to lay to rest his conversational obligation. During the stillness of the moment, his sky blue eyes calmly watched the larger man –taking in how meticulously he prepared the coffee in a way that was very obviously a routine. Unaware of the gaze set upon him and his actions, the tall brunette swiftly prepared two cups of coffee, and walked over to the seated patron – taking care to place the blonde's cup a few inches away from the edge of the table.

"Thank you." Slipped out as a courtesy, to which the brunette merely nodded in response. With a slender index finger corkscrewed around the handle of the cup, and a raised thumb pressed against it to act as a balancer, he brought the coffee to his lips – overwhelmed by the sweet aroma long before his taste buds confirmed the sugar overload. "It's sweet." He stated as he rested the cup back down atop the laminate surface.

"So what?" The brunette inquired laxly as he sipped at his own coffee from the comfort of the chair. "You don't like your coffee sweet?"

"No. Not particularly." He glanced to the liquid lying still in the bowel of the white mug. "I think it might have something to with the way I was raised." Blue eyes slid up as his chin lifted, and looked to the man seated ahead. "You didn't ask me what kind of coffee I wanted."

"Sorry." He spoke dryly whilst taking another drink of his coffee, "Most of my customers like sweet coffee, so I just assumed you did too."

"Customers like Seth Rollins, huh?" To the name, the brunette stopped his mug halfway to his lips, and held it there for a long, silent moment. The blonde looked at him with intrusive eyes, as he folded his arms lazily at the point where his lower abdomen met his lap. "Were you expecting him when I walked in?"

The brunette placed his coffee back down on the table and stared at the blonde with harsh gray-blue eyes that seemed to carry the worst winter season in the belly of their lenses. "What did you come here for, Dean?"

The air of confidence faltered and crumbled to the sound of his name coming from a brunette he never knew until recently. "How do you know my name, Randy?"

Orton smirked coyly at the state of perplexity that white washed Dean's face. "Roman told me." The bewilderment of the man seated ahead of him only grew to that statement. "Contrary to what you saw yesterday, he and I used to be good friends. Our lives took us elsewhere pretty quickly and ended that bad romance before it even started, but during our friendship, he often spoke about some guy he knew. He never said anything incriminating – I mean it is a small town after all – but you could see it on his face." A quick grin slid up the right hand side of his face for the briefest of seconds, before vanishing beneath the placidity of his expression. "It was like just the very thought of you put him over the moon; but just as easily, having to say out loud that you were gone was all it took for gravity to set in, and send him crashing back down to earth." He glanced down to his coffee. "It was kinda hurtful seeing him like that, so I took the initiative and stopped listening. Shortly after, Seth appears and Roman stops talking altogether." His eyes flickered back up to Dean, before he stood up from the table. "I'll get you some water."

The blonde nodded in response as silence sat amongst the diner, forcing Dean to stare aimlessly into the black nadir of his breakfast drink. Inside, Dean felt the crunching of a heavy pressure that had built in his chest cavity and was now attempting to grind his bones down to dust. Hearing Randy's words made for a returning desire to smoke away the scathing nerves that now stood on edge, however he quickly pushed the urge aside by tightly clasping his hands together as they rested atop the table.

"When I left," He spoke with a husky voice, "I didn't really think I'd be missed. I mean, I had just kinda showed up in Roman's life and left in the same fashion, so in my mind, he wouldn't have noticed me being gone." His tightly squeezed fingers stared up at the solemn blue eyes that were peeking down from behind the lowered curtains of heavy eyelids rimmed with a barrage of eyelashes one shade darker than blonde. "Coming back now…I realize just how wrong I was. And I don't have the right to be mad at anybody else except myself, yet…" His brows knitted together as emotion piled atop them, "I see someone like Seth in all the places I used to own, and I feel something eating away at me, but I know I have no right to feel this way. For God's sake,_ I_ left _him_, so I shouldn't hate what I see, or wish to change what is now. But I can't stop wanting to change it. I can't stop wanting it to be as it used to be, before everything became so fucking different." From behind the counter, Randy watched with nonchalance as Dean lifted his head to place slightly widened blue eyes on him, "That's why, yesterday, I was so happy when Seth defended you and made Roman mad. It made me selfishly think that I was finally better than Seth, because I would never have defended someone else like that if it meant hurting Roman." He scoffed lightly to an uneasy smile as his eyes drifted back to the table, "But, for the little inch I'm given, I'm reminded that I did hurt him, and what little advantage I thought I had is now gone." His smile quickly faded, "The more I see Seth with Roman, the more I realize that I just can't beat the man who's responsible for fixing what I broke."

Randy sighed heavily as he dug in the small fridge for a bottle of water. "You know what I think" He spoke as he closed the fridge and headed back to the table, "I think you've got what Roman and Seth are penned up all wrong."

Dean glanced up to the older man, before turning his attention to the bottle of cold water sitting in place of his sweet coffee. "Seth's living with him" He smiled weakly, "What else could it be?"

The older brunette inhaled deeply as he sat back in the comfort of his chair. "I think we both know who should be answering that question, Dean." He drank more of his now lukewarm coffee – taking care to gently place it down. "But…if I had to label the bond between Seth and Roman, I'd label it as the transference effect."

"The transference effect?" Dean inquired with as much confusion as was expected.

"Yeah." Randy spoke with a heavy tone. "Roman's a rock. He's got a steady and sure aura about him, and people gravitate to that, and cling to that with a death grip. He's also got the biggest heart of anyone I know, so he easily fits the bill for what people would normally consider a hero." He scoffed lowly, "It's why he makes such a good friend, but it's also why he doesn't." Randy watched as Dean furrowed his brow in an effort to think upon what was just said. The sight amused the older man – a reaction he showcased in his devilish grin. "When you find someone who connects you to life, that person becomes your everything. You hold onto that person, and you center your whole world around them." He glanced to the empty tables to his right as his eyelids lowered in deep thought, "Mesh that mindset with someone like Seth Rollins, and you've got the transference effect."

"Someone like Seth Rollins?" Ambrose questioned entirely confused.

Randy looked back to him with deadpan stare – holding his eyes in the coldness of his own, before deciding to reply. "I've known Seth since he was kid." He scoffed to a small smile, "Well, more of a kid than he is now, but he's never truly changed in all that time." The smile faded away as the fog of his cold demeanor encapsulated it. "He's still just as selfish, vindictive, cunning, and possessive as he was when I first met him."

"H-How can you say that about him?" Dean asked in a quiet undertone of anger, the more his mind churned over the Seth Rollins he had been exposed to for the past few days. "You keep your diner open every morning and make his favorite breakfast when he stops by, so how could you say that?" His voice grew as his expression sold steady disbelief, "Aren't you in love with him?"

Randy visibly twitched to the question, as his expression hardboiled on Dean. "Digging for an underlying relationship between me and Seth just to find a foothold to stand upon in your own cesspool, isn't going to help you become the only person residing in Roman's heart." His tone grew heavier as the weight of his words bore down on it, "I take care of an unruly customer. He just happens to be Seth Rollins. There's nothing more to it."

"But" He leaned slightly forward, projecting the volume of his voice, "he got so angry with Roman and defended you passionately yesterday so—"

"You think this is the first time Roman and Seth have gotten into an argument?" Randy cut in with a voice rolled in gravel. To Dean's silent response, the older man continued coldly, "Seth is a very passionate person, is a fancy way of saying he's fucking stubborn. He doesn't listen to what people say, but expects everyone else in his own little world to obey his every whim and command. Seth's not someone who welcomes change as easily as someone like you or I would, and when things don't go his way or become different, he throws a tantrum." He leaned forward with his arms on the table, "Roman set up a rule that his place was only ever to include himself and Seth. You're there now, with Roman's permission, so as a way to get back at him, Seth invited me over. He just wanted Roman's attention, and he probably used his future compliance to cut me out as a way to get Roman to kick you out." A snide smirk slid onto his chiseled face, as he leaned back into his chair, "You on the other hand, seem to believe that Seth has every right to be with Roman because he was there when you were not. You seem quite content with living under those arrangements, even though you've tried in some way to one up the situation. However," His tone darkened, "Seth isn't looking to coexist with you, Dean. He's looking to get rid of you entirely. He doesn't give a crap about who you were and are to Roman. So do yourself a favor, and start demanding more of your situation. Don't think Roman will give him the boot, and don't try and create scenarios in your head where I'd be rushing in and taking Seth from Roman. Neither is going to happen, because if you want the world to change you have to be the one who makes it change. No one else is going to do that for you." His voice lowered dramatically from where it once was. "The sooner you recognize this salient truth, the better."

Once more, Dean hung his head lightly. His mind overran with thoughts, however logic wasn't the only reason why his gaze now faced the table top – having long looked past the contents set on the laminate surface. Rather, guilt played a small role in his current position as he thought upon how right Randy Orton was, and how utterly stupid he had been to believe otherwise. After all, from the very moment he first met Seth Rollins, Dean easily sensed the violent tension building between them both. However, at some point he had already convinced himself that the existence of Seth Rollins was something he was forbidden to infringe upon, and as such, instead of facing that tension head on, Dean simply grit his teeth and bared through it. On one hand, the fault belonged to Roman – seeing that the older man didn't discuss Seth's presence, leading Dean to believe the young man was something that had to be there in order for the world to work the way it did. On the other hand, his own nature was to blame – a possibility his whimsical ego would not allow him to deeply consider.

"What Seth and Roman are…?" He spoke softly, "You called it the transference effect" Randy's eyes narrowed as a light frown graced his brow. "The same can probably be said about me, couldn't it?" He choked for a moment before continuing on, "I mean…my family consisted of nothing more than the people I lived with, and my home was simply a place I had a key to. Roman was different. He had everything I would have wanted, and he happily shared it all with me. I don't really remember exactly when he became my world, but I remember the constant desire to be the center of his at all costs." His jaw clenched as he took a heavy breath inward, "If you're right about the kind of person Seth is, then you're describing me as well aren't you?"

"You have a bad habit of asking the wrong people for answers, Dean." Randy spoke callously, bringing the blonde's attention back to him, "I don't know you. Hell, before yesterday I probably wasn't even a sub-topic for your conversations with Roman, and up until yesterday, I never had a face to put to the man Roman once talked my ears off about." Boorish gray-blue eyes sharpened on Dean's face. "But if you're asking me to describe you based on what I do know, I'd say you treat people like you treated that cup of coffee." He smirked lightly, "You don't like it, but you still drink it to be polite."

"Are you saying that I'm a liar, Randy?" Dean inquired hesitantly.

"Would you like me say that?" Ambrose stiffened subtly to the insinuation – a response that did not go unnoticed by Randy. The older man smirked wickedly as he prepped to say more; however the sound of chimes clinking madly against one another stayed his tongue from speaking further on the topic.

Noticing Randy's distracted gaze, Dean looked over his shoulder to find his eyes on the shapely figure of a brunette woman stood causally in front of the door. Through large sunglasses, she looked about the modest-sized diner, before removing her shades to reveal a piercing pair of light blue eyes.

Immediately, Randy stood to his feet with a slightly perturbed expression hosted on his face. "Sam" He called in a barely audible tone.

The woman smiled sweetly, before stepping aside to let pass the little girl stood behind her. Once the blockade had shifted, the little girl immediately ran towards Randy, and held onto his waist for dear life.

"Daddy!" She called in the fabric of his clothes.

Dean continued to look on –unsure of whether or not his shock had stemmed from the mystery woman, the little girl, or the fact that said little girl had just labelled the older brunette 'Daddy' a few seconds ago – only to find himself snapping to the sound of a voice speaking to him.

"Dean." The blonde looked up with an expression truly befitting how lost he was, finding his eyes staring at the sight of Randy now holding the clinging girl in his large arms – her head resting squarely in the cup of his shoulder as her arms squeezed tightly around his neck and her legs wrapped around his waist. "I'm closing up for the day." He smirked arrogantly, "I've got a paying customer to attend to."

The jest was absent in Randy's choice words – a realization that made Dean all the more uneasy as he tried to ward off the desire to know what his eyes and ears were beholding – however, sensing the room for no argument or allotted investigation, Dean decided to offer to the uncomfortable situation a light-hearted scoff, while taking a stand from the table. "You're the one who said it was on the house."

"I was talking about the coffee, which you didn't like." He spoke matter-of-factly.

"Right." Dean smiled as he turned to leave. "Thanks for your time."

The chimes rattled about as the blonde left the diner. With a few feet separated between himself and the establishment, Dean took the chance to glance back – catching in the furthermost corner of his eyes the sight of the "paying customer" planting a short-lived kiss on Randy's cheek, as the older man headed round the breakfast counter with the little girl still firmly held in his arms. The sight stunned him for a moment, making it temporarily impossible to look away, before he was able to pry away his eyes in need of ensuring that he didn't trip over his own feet – all the while trying to make sense of just how strange the day had become.


	9. For Selfish Want

The engine of the nineties F150 roiled violently beneath the sun-beaten hood as four very tried tires rolled along at a forty plus clip – chewing up asphalt like bubblegum with every mile shed away in the distance. Outside the musty, and cracked windshield of the old truck sat the skimmed horizon of the linear town. Knowing home to be now in reach, he quickly began to restack his belongings back into his open bag – taking care to toss out the open window all the evidence of beer consumption that had taken place along the way. One can slipped face down towards his shirt, pouring the remaining yellowish-liquid into the sponge-like fabric.

"Shit!" He cursed in ire – tossing the can lopsidedly out the window as he did.

"What?" The driver asked with his left hand steadily on the wheel. Dark russet eyes looked over to see the brunette angrily examining the stain on his shirt. "What the hell is that Seth?" He inquired of the wet spot on Rollin's shirt.

"What do you think it is, Bo?" He stated dryly, before refocusing his angry auburns back down to his ruined apparel. "Damn it. This day just keeps getting fucking better and better."

"Hey now." Bo spoke calmly, "We ain't got no more beer, so don't go getting all depressed on me again." With eyes darting to the road and to the inside of his truck, Bo rummaged around his immediate areas seeking for something to help vanquish the stain. Eventually he came across a lightly used napkin. "Here." He stated as he handed Seth the object.

"Thanks." Seth replied while fervently rubbing the recycled piece of paper over the stain. It dried but stayed very much attached to the fabric. "I need another shirt." He glanced to Bo. "Lend me yours."

"What?" Bo flickered a perplexed gaze between Seth and the road. "No. I'm not lending you my shirt. Just take yours off when you get home."

"Ro does the laundry, idiot. He'll be pissed if he smells beer on my shirt. And he'll be pissed if I show up shirtless." With hands lifted slightly above his head, Seth wormed his way out of his clothing to reveal to the cramped interior of the truck and the driver of said truck, a lean and muscular build that seemed to define every part of his torso in its own category. Bo sat staring for a moment before the feel of the vehicle drifting pulled him back to focusing on the road. "Gimme your shirt now."

"I already told you—"

Without any prior warning, the two-toned brunette quickly grabbed hold of the driver and immediately began to wrestle the startled teenager out of his clothes. The suddenness and highly unexpectedness of the attack forced the long-haired teenager into a maddened frenzy of desperately trying to keep his brother's truck on the road. The worn tires clipped the edge of the road that had lifted as the surrounding ground drained away in recent years, and immediately flung the F150 over to the opposite side – sailing it in the direction of the fenced pastures. As Seth pulled at the shirt – seemingly unperturbed by the chaos he had instigated – Bo found his wits and quickly grabbed hold of the wheel, turning it to a hard right so as to get the vehicle back on course. With a wheel-and-a-half lifted off the gritty asphalt, the Ford truck careened to the direction of its steering, and by sheer luck, clung back onto the right hand side of the road without rolling into the fields nearby. Having brought the vehicle under some control, Bo immediately took action and forced his foot into the brake pedal and yanked up the handbrake positioned next to him – bringing the near four ton vehicle to a stop.

"The hell are you doing Seth?!" He barked at the teenager situated next to him. "Are you tryin' to get us killed?!"

"It's cold Bo." He spoke with a light frown on his brows. "You have another shirt on, so just lend me the one you don't need."

Bo opened his mouth to say something along the lines to a sure beat down, however having known his passenger all through high school and therefore knowing that a beat down would most likely be laid on him, the words he wanted to blurt out got stuck in his throat. Exasperated by the life-threatening events that he had just driven through, Bo rested his head atop the hand laid on the steering wheel, before letting out a long sigh.

"Fine." He stated pointedly, as he leaned back and harshly removed his shirt from his body – flinging it at Seth in residual anger. "Happy now?" He asked while watching Rollins put the shirt on.

"Yeah." Seth smiled at Bo as he fixed the shirt to his liking. "Thanks."

"Whatever." Bo quickly let down his handbrake, and lifted his foot off the brake – allowing the truck to be easily shifted into gear. "I'm glad to see that you're so happy now." He spoke as the vehicle sped along towards the nearing town. "You looked like shit this morning."

Seth dropped his tender smile and opted to turn his head out the window – looking out at the passing greenery while allowing his face to be slashed apart by the abrasive wind.

Noting his friend's silence, Bo glanced to Rollins – taking in the sight of the young man simply looking out the open window – before placing his own eyes back on the road. "I don't normally put my nose in your business, Seth, but for the past few days you've just been looking unhappy." His grip tightened on the wheel. "Did you and Roman get into a fight again?"

Rollins scoffed to the question. "Something like that." He sighed under a heated breath before turning to watch the arrival of the small town through the muddied windshield. "Anyways, we made up like we always do, so it's fine now."

Bo glanced down at Seth – finding an inexplicable loneliness rippling within the barriers of Rollins' face. The truck came to a squeaky halt as battered brakes – made none the better by recent activities – stopped the truck on the outside of Seth's home. The brunette quickly grabbed his bag and opened the door, only to be stopped at his exit by the feel of a strong hand on his shoulder. Light-filled auburn eyes looked back to spot the very serious expression craved into Bo's face.

"If things aren't right, Seth, you don't have to stay here."

Seth stared at his friend for a silent moment, before smiling to the understanding of what had just been said. "You make it sound like I have a choice."

"You do." Bo spoke up – slightly desperately. "I mean, you could come stay with me and my brother. You don't have to stay here if—"

"Your sister in law, Abigail," Seth cut in with a low tone, "she's having another child soon right? Your family's now nine people strong, and your parent's house was already small to begin with. There's no room for anyone else there. And besides," A feather-heavy smile graced his face, "I'm not an intruder. This is my home." His smile fell instantly, "I won't be the one who leaves."

Unable to conjure up any form of argument to such a painted truth, Bo let Seth slip from his grasp and close the door on the empty space now occupying the passenger seat. Cordial to a fault, Seth turned to face Bo with a smile.

"See you around."

Bo looked on stoically for a moment as he analyzed Seth's expression. "I'll pick you up for school tomorrow."

"You don't have to." Seth replied with his smile wavering.

"I want to." Bo smiled back light-heartedly as though to punctuate his genuine sincerity. "So, tomorrow then?"

Seth sighed softly, as he shook his head. "Tomorrow."

The teen pressed his lips against each other as he nodded his approval of Seth's response. Rollins watched as Bo took hold of the wheel, and waved his goodbye as the truck headed down the road. Once the large vehicle had put itself and its driver at a good enough distance, Seth allowed himself to be hit with the mountain of emotions that had plagued him since daybreak. His weary eyes looked across the street to find the red and white OPEN sign staring back from behind a glass door. Inside, his mind thought upon the possiblity of running to Orton with his problems - a reoccuring decision he had made countless times -and inside, he felt himself want to do just that. However, despite what he felt when looking at Randy's diner, he put aside the indescribable feeling and made his way towards his own home.

The large steel door opened to the easy push of the force behind it, revealing the old wrestling material currently being utilized by two young boys.

"Seth!" One of the boys called from inside the ring. "You're late man!"

Seth looked up at him in acknowledgement. "Jesse." He stated with a light question mark on his tongue. "What are you and Brandon doing here?" He inquired with a short-lived acknowledgement of the boy who laid uncomfortable in the vice of his sparring partner. "How did you get in?"

"Dean let us in." Jesse spoke as he applied more pressure to his vicious hold. Brandon grunted in an effort to offset the wish to scream. "When we got here he was walking up to the door."

"Oh." Seth spoke dryly. His eyes soon wandered up the staircase to find the closed door sitting kingly at the summit. His mind drifted to someplace before the beer had taken its toll, and was immediately brought back upon realizing the truth of his current situation. With that, the two-toned brunette slid his brown eyes back towards the boys in the ring. "Just don't break anything." He turned, and paused. "And let Brandon go, Jesse." The boy in question looked down to the boy he currently held in a vice. At some point, Brandon's face had gone bluish-purple.

"Oh shit!" Jesse exclaimed as he released his hold on his counterpart.

Seth watched momentarily as Brandon tried his best to gulp down precious air, and Jesse try his best to dodge the righteous attacks heading his way, before deciding to leave the two in their own world and make the long trek up the stairs.

With each foot pressed against the wooden stairs, his shoulders felt heavier. Somewhere in his mind, he dreamed up the nightmarish vision of what he had been subject to this morning. Dean and Roman seated at the table, holding each other in a longing gaze. Since the first day he had opened this very door to find a blonde stood on the balcony, puffing on a cigarette, Seth knew from Roman's reactions that the then blonde 'stranger' was truly someone to contend with. That fact grew as time went on, and the interactions between Dean and Roman grew to more intense levels. Then there was yesterday. In every way, Seth believed it to be the last straw. Seeing Roman walk in with a dazed Dean Ambrose trailing behind set bombs off in his own calm mindset, however it would have tasted a lie to say the young man had not been expecting it. However, what he was not expecting in any meaning of the word, was the sound of Roman's baritone voice rising above sea level to speak blasphemous words that entirely cemented the meaning behind Dean Ambrose's existence.

Without having talked about it on the way to school – as Roman did this morning – Seth knew in just a few words and motions exactly who Dean Ambrose was to Roman Reigns. However, speculation and actual fact were two very different things in terms of how much damage they did to his heart. Speculating the relationship between Roman and Dean only made it near impossible to sleep. Knowing the relationship between Roman and Dean – having heard it all from the former man – made it near impossible for the teenager to convince himself to open the door right now. His hand had already began the process, having tightened around the knob, but his body froze to the tension that rode his entire being like a fat man on a rail thin pony. At school, talking it through in parables to his friend Bo, the very recollection of the words that Roman had used in his vivid description of who Dean Ambrose was easily put him over the edge, and forced him to gulp down copious amounts of liquor so as to dull the sharpness of his matured mind. Eventually, with enough beers in them both, the situation and the words didn't affect him as badly –making what he said to Bo really true.

However, with the beer gone, and Bo also vanished in the distance, Seth began to feel himself slowly get crushed by the heaviness atop his head and shoulders the longer he stood at the very site of what had been the cause of his painstakingly slow ruin. Behind the door, Seth knew he would find Dean Ambrose. He knew this on the first day after as well. However, unlike the day after, he now understood who Dean Ambrose was, and therefore had to face this brand new Dean Ambrose with an expression he was unsure he could properly master.

The door rattled a bit as the knob turned. Immediately as he stepped over the threshold, Dean Ambrose appeared in all his newness.

"Roman—" The blonde called with a small dimpled smile, only to have it tanked by the sight of Seth Rollins. "Oh… hey Seth." He spoke with a cautious tone. Seth looked at him with a deadpan expression. Somehow in the time it took him to drink well beyond his age and mount the stairs, Rollins found that he still could not get comfortable with the self he had to present to a man once known to him as 'intruder'. Unable to take the silence, Dean continued his quest for simple conversation. "So, how was school today?"

_I drank my life away thanks to you_, were all too much the words that Seth wanted to say. However, this was not his first dance with alcohol, and as such, the brunette knew how best to curb those drunken spurs of honesty.

"It was okay." He slid his attention elsewhere for a moment as he threw his bag onto floor and dropped into the couch behind it. "I'm just so tired right now." He spoke into the seat.

"Teachers working you hard I take it?" Dean's light tone of voice rattled into Seth's listening ears – pinning him further down into the cushion of the sofa, making it more impossible for the brunette to showcase his own true expressions. "I get your feeling. I used to hate school too, but trust me. The things they teach you there will help you in life."

_Life? You've damn well ruined mine._ He scoffed to the very notion, before rising to a seated position – having felt the pressure of Dean sitting down on the opposite end of the three-person-couch. "I don't see how letters in math will ever help me win a fight."

"Life's not all about fighting Seth." Dean spoke a bit more light-hearted – taking in the ease at which the conversation now flowed. "Most battles are won with intellect."

Seth lifted his chin slightly, and slid his eyes over his right shoulder to find Dean looking back with vivid blue eyes and a large smile. "I heard from the boys that you let them in." His gaze hardened the longer he looked at Dean, before a large smile slid across his face. "Don't tell me you left the door open while you were out?"

"I didn't." Dean spoke in a brash tone – expressing on his face his distaste for the insinuation. "Roman gave me a duplicate of his key when he got back this morning." Blue eyes set to the blank TV ahead, before lowering just as quickly. "He's been out for a while now. I'm getting kinda worried."

The forced smile slowly slipped out of its clasps and fell behind the cold expression that graced his face momentarily. Through fiery eyes, Seth watched as Dean's mind became instantly overrun with thoughts of Roman. Greatly affected by Ambrose's visual display of affectionate worry, Seth took to looking about the small living space – finding it entirely spotless, and now noting the fresh scent of something tropical floating about in the air.

"You cleaned up?" He asked with his eyes still surveying the obvious.

Dean looked about as well with an accomplished smile settled on his face. "Yeah. I went down to the store to get some cleaning supplies." He looked back to Seth, "I can't keep freeloading while I'm here."

The younger man looked at Dean with a compulsory pleasant expression. "You even sprayed the place with air freshener."

"Hawaiian scent." Ambrose replied politely, "Roman's favorite."

His brow visible twitched to the cracks in his expression's foundation, as he told his inner mindset to let slide Dean's choice words. The pain of the verbal gut punch soon subsided the longer Seth remained silent and allowed himself the time to revisit what he needed to be in the eyes of Dean. Friendly was obviously not a good fit.

"It's Thursday, so Roman's in the city right now." Clambered from his lips in a pretentious tone. "Nowadays he runs errands, but the truth is he used to go spend the day looking for you."

"Looking for me?" Ambrose parroted in his own gritty voice.

"The one and only." Seth stated matter-of-factly, while leaning back into the couch.

For a moment, Dean looked to the ground, brows furrowed in confusion as eyes swept rapidly from side to side as though he were physically reading his jumbled thoughts. "How…" He stated in a distant tone, as his eyes locked onto Seth "How long did he…?"

Seth glanced to the older blonde seated next to him, before heaving a long sigh to start his next set of words. "Ever since I met him." He leaned forwards – arms bent at the elbows and set on the balled tips of his knees so as to bring an upright clasp of his hands to act as a balance for his chin. "He did it on Thursday because that's grocery day, and he could give that excuse. Then he would come home all sad and lonely and most times he'd just sit out here in this couch and look out that window and cry." Seth leaned his hands outwards over the edge of his knees and eyed his open palms. "I spent many nights holding him until he fell asleep, until one day the crying stopped. But the sadness was still there each time he came back without any closure."

Undeniable shock took root on Dean's face. "I never knew." He spoke in a soft voice.

"Of course you didn't." Seth replied with a callous tone, "You weren't around. You just left Roman to wonder about unable to tell himself that he needed to let go, and his memory of you ultimately broke him down to something nobody could recognize." He glared at the older man, feeling the sickly feeling in the pit of his stomach heat up and spread rapidly throughout his body. "I was here each and every day keeping him company and painstakingly putting back together the man you left for dead."

"I didn't leave by choice, Seth." He spoke defensively, "I couldn't stay."

"Why?" Seth asked with the first bit of ire seeping onto his words, "Was it because he was going to be a football star and you felt that you were holding him back by being with him? Or was it because you talked yourself into believing that he deserved to have a family of his own, and you thought the only way he could have that was with a woman?"

Dean froze in a state of Catharism, before lightly shaking himself back to reality. "How did you—"

"Roman told me about you." Cut through like a hot knife on butter. "You're his former lover who disappeared without a trace and left him wondering what he had done to deserve that, when in truth you were the problem all along." He smirked wickedly, "You're just a coward Dean. You ran away because you couldn't fess up to your feelings for Roman, and when you finally grew a pair, you come crawling back claiming you didn't mean to leave him and break his heart, and hoping he takes your cowardly ass back."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Broke through his once soft voice as he rose quickly to his feet. "You don't know anything about us!"

"I don't care about your so-called 'us', Dean!" Seth roared back as he too stood up to face the older man, "It's me and Ro now, and _you're_ intruding! Your presence is nothing more than a nuisance to him! Just the sight of you brings him back to those times when all he could do was lie broken on this old couch and cry in my arms! You're not wanted Dean! Ro has me and he will never, _ever_ need you again, so why don't you just do what you're good at and disa-fucking-ppear!"

The heavy clash of palm on skin reverberated off the encasing walls of the living space. Like thunder to lightning, the realization that he had just been stuck in the face came after the very action had long since occurred. The wide-spread fire that had been boiling beneath the torrential rain of beer, broke free and quickly consumed what was left of his working mind. Much like day one, instincts quickly took over having banished logic to the far corners of the earth.

As Dean's expression began to set into a sudden realization of what he had just done, Seth lounged forward with his own hands tensed into a pair of readied fists. The older man stood his ground and prepared to retaliate, only to have the sound of locks moving about stop both men dead in their tracks.

Seth turned to look at the happenings behind his back and found the large Samoan standing slightly perplexed by the awkward tension that bear-hugged the space.

"Ro~!" Seth called just as quickly as he ran to Roman. The large man buckled back a bit so as to stop the force Seth carried on his way to him. With a large smile on his face, Seth quickly hugged the older man, "I missed you so much." He exclaimed joyously.

In the background, Dean held onto his left bicep – digging his fingers into his muscle so as to dissipate the anger that had settled in him. Once again, his own true-nature cowardice had bolted him to the ground, and for a moment he recalled Seth's description of him. Having done so, made his current condition worse, and forced him to clench his jaw and tense the majority of his body as a way to slow down the fast spreading poison that ate away at him.

From the entryway, the larger man glanced between Dean and Seth. Soul-piercing blue eyes soon lingered on the latter man, and, having convinced himself that what he had seen before was simply a trick of his eyes, Roman took a short-lived hold of Seth, before bringing them to a slight separation so as to bear down his own large smile. "I missed yo—" He stopped mid-sentence and immediately grabbed Seth's jaw, turning the younger man's left side to his eyes. "What's with this bruise?" He asked with building ire, "Who did this to you Seth?"

Rollins held his eyes on Roman for a short moment before sliding them down to the floor. Gentle fingers calmly held captive the hand Roman held his face in, while his free hand pointed to the man stood stoic at the couch. "Dean did this."

Shock sat kingly on Roman's overall expression – taking a special liking to his stentorious eyes – as the older man tried in vain to rightly process what he had just heard. Still in his own daze, Reigns lifted his eyes towards Dean, finding the blonde looking back with a sense of terror in his usually collected gaze. The sight of Dean Ambrose's reaction and the bruise on Seth Rollin's face made for an unholy clash of emotions within the older man. Possessed by such undefined moods, Roman gently put Seth aside and walked over towards Dean.

"Dean." He called in a whisper-like tone – placing his own binding rage aside in consideration for who he was now speaking to, "Did you hit him?" Dean bit into his lower lip so as to hold back the floodgates. Roman leaned in to close the distance, "Did you hit Seth?"

Feeling the encroaching corner slip up behind his back, Ambrose nodded stiffly in response – now gnawing at the suppleness of his lip in hopes of fending off the sinking feeling that plagued his entire being.

"Why did you do that, Dean?" Roman asked with his tone unchanged.

Unable to bear the closeness, Dean turned his eyes away and attempted to step back as a prelude to his desire to run– only to have Roman's hands on his shoulders stop his movements.

"Dean—"

"He hit me because he hates me Ro." Seth spoke up vibrantly in the distance. "He wants me gone."

"I don't hate you Seth!" Dean shouted with his eyes welded shut, "I just—"

"Tell him he has to go Ro." Seth cut in brutally, "This is _our_ home. There's no place for him here."

Dean tensed to Seth's cold words – a reaction Roman could feel happen beneath his fingertips. The older man looked at Ambrose for a moment longer, catching in the man's downward gaze the sight of rippling tears held suspended at the brink of his eye lid. Roman's ire quickly subsided as he succumbed to Ambrose's sadness.

"That's cheating Dean." He spoke beneath a low breath, before glancing to Seth over the rise of his broad shoulder, "No one's leaving, Seth. You're both very important to me, so I need you two to just sit down right now and—"

"Why are you allowing him to stay, when he's the reason you've been so sad all the time?!" Seth shouted from the bowels of his throat as he lost all hold on reason.

"Seth, please" Roman pleaded gently, as he turned to face the younger man. "Please just come over here and talk it through."

"No!" He barked in reply, "I'm not just going to fucking sit there and talk about your new arrangement!"

"Seth!" Roman responded in anger directed mostly at Seth's choice language rather than his steadfast defiance.

"I've been there for you through thick and thin Ro! I'm the one who should be here with you, not him! He threw away his place here a long time ago!" Tears began to flow heavily out his eyes the hotter his inner flames got. "I'm supposed to be the only person you care about! I've earned that right while he fucking spat on it!"

Recognizing the better path to take in regards to this, Roman chose ultimately to lower his own guard in hopes that Seth would follow suit. "I know Seth, and you're right, but if you let me just talk to you, we could all just—"

"There isn't any fucking _we!_" Barged through his lips, and subsequently squashed all hopes Roman had in laying his own battle gear down. "I'm not going to share you with him, because it's just you and me, Ro! Why can't you see that?!" Roman opened his mouth to retaliate once more, only to have Seth shove his own voice down his throat. "Fuck this, I'm going to Bo's place! At least I'm wanted there!"

"Seth—!"

The younger man quickly grabbed hold of the front door knob and threw the door open. Roman instantly reacted by stepping forward towards the leaving teenager. However, barely in the confines of a full step, Roman jolted to a halt as he felt an opposing force latch onto his arm so as to root him to the room. With heated blood coursing through his veins, Roman threw his glare over his shoulder to find Dean's bright blue eyes staring back helplessly at him. A sudden calm caved over Roman Reigns as he fell captive to the deep rooted gaze stemming from a clutching Dean Ambrose.

The door closed shut after a decade long few seconds – having been brought to that position rather harshly by Seth – however the sound it made to signal its new position did not meet any waiting ears. Rather, its target audience had long since abandoned everything else to engage in a tangled mess of passion and feelings that grew rapidly with every touch, kiss and taste.

The couch pushed back, and grated along the flooring as the men tumbled down clumsily onto its cushioning – still locked in the ferocity of their intense covetousness.

With the image of Seth's departure resurfacing from the depths of his lust, Roman quickly pushed away from Dean "I'm sorry, but I have to-"

"Please." Dean called weakly as he held on tightly to Roman, "Please don't go."

A short-lived discombobulated expression sat on his face as his mind wrestled against his heart for dominance. Going after Seth in times like these, and trying in every way to bring the younger man back to him was so much of a natural reaction, that his mind had converted it to something as subconscious as breathing. However, the man who had been absent from his life for nine years was now holding onto him for dear life, and practically begging him to stay- something teenage Dean never did - and Roman found it more than difficult not to oblige him.

In the end, his heart won out, and reached up with a million hands to pull him into the warmth of Dean Ambrose.


	10. Delineation

His dream.

It started out as complete darkness. A long, winding road lay beneath the tired soles of his bare feet that felt cool to the touch. A resounding echo reverberated off vanished walls with every heavy step he managed to take – slightly desperate to escape this nadir. After journeying for what could easily be mistaken for an eternity, he found himself lying inside his childhood bedroom. Four picture-less walls, a crumbling ceiling that leaked when it rained, badly beaten wood floors, a hand-me-down chest of drawers, and a prison cot bed. These were all the things that had been gathered together to make his bedroom. With springs digging deep into his sides, he turned to his other left to relieve the pressure, only to land the tip of his nose in the soft fur of his cat Moxley. His eyes drifted open so as to see the kitten's small frame curled into a tight ball. The sight brought a light smile to his face – outlining his dimples nonetheless – as he thought about how truly nice it was to have such a tender soul next to him. With each rise and fall of Moxely's tiny body, he could feel her life pulsate from beneath her in rippling fashion, until it infected his very being – meshing with his own life beats, and forcing them to succumb to the steady rhythm. Soon, as his eyes slowly slipped back beneath closing eyelids, the ratty springs beneath his thin mattress slipped by his more docile pain receptors to the point where he could no longer feel them. Welcoming of this sudden numbness, he spent his remaining energy bringing himself closer to the source of his tolerance – cupping his broken arm below Moxely's balled, sleeping frame, and falling back into the darkness of sleep within the instant.

To the sudden loss of footing, blue eyes snapped open to reveal much of the same darkness he had journeyed through. The feel of softness on the furthermost parts of his face prompted him to strain from his surroundings what little light he could find, and use it to form an image of what lay in front of him. Still stuck somewhat in the murkiness of his childhood reminisce, Moxely's curled form came to his eyes almost as soon as he had opened them. However, once logic weighed in –setting a reminder in his subconscious that he had long since left behind his childhood home – his eyes began to let go of the precious memory, and forge from its own steeliness, the true sight of Roman's sleeping face mere millimeters from his own. Following the flow of silky black hair, he found that some rogue strands had bunched together to lie away from Roman, and subsequently end up near his own face when he had decided to move closer to the sleeping Samoan. From close range, Roman's steady breathing could be both heard and felt – the latter resembling the feel of a cool summer breeze running across his face – and the overall body heat that had entangled him made him feel overall cozy, and at peace. Instinctively, he pulled his hand closer to the fragments of Roman's face his hampered vision was able to make out, and gently rubbed the man's short-bearded jaw – smiling gently as his fingers lapped up the feel of rough bristles and the soft skin buried beneath them.

"You've gotten big, Moxley." Slipped out from his mouth in a much sleep-ridden tone of voice.

He scoffed lightly to himself as he thought once more on the now fading dream he had about his little cat. The memory forced up a heaviness from deep inside his soul, and threw it onto his mood– forcing it to nose-dive towards a bottomless depression. Sadness purposefully clawed its way into his heart the longer he thought upon Moxley, however as he felt Roman's breath wash over him once more, the impending sorrow allotted to him slipped back between the cracks and vanished as the hole in his heart finally closed shut.

The dream he had just been a part of soon left the longer he stayed awake. Piece by piece he was having trouble recollecting that part of his past, as his mind took pleasure in vividly remembering what had just happened a mere moments ago to lead up to what was now his very real present. The feel of Roman's fingers, lips, tongue, and manhood set his body on fire, and soon had him squirming beneath the sheets in an effort to calm himself down. His eyes shut for a moment to gather the concentration needed to prevent himself from attacking the sleeping Samoan, however in doing so, he invited the recollection of Roman's deep, and seductive voice that shattered him down to the bone every time the larger man made a sound too close to his ear.

Unable to get any relief with his eyes closed, he opened them once more to see Roman's sleeping face. The older man was obviously unaffected by his now sturdy erection. Taking this into account, Dean slipped his caressing hand down the gullet of the cotton sheet – clasping onto his own manhood as he did. With his blue eyes locked on sultrily to Roman's chiseled face, he began stroking himself with every recollection of the older man's voice as it called his name, and touch as it felt his body.

The sound of the door opening brought him from his descent into uncontrollable lust, and quickly had him pulling his hand back to his upper chest and burying closer to Roman so as to camouflage his awake status beneath the guise of sleep.

Light-weight footsteps seemingly glided across the floor – making little to no contact with it – only to stop at the start of the bed with as much quickness as their arrival. Beneath his naked chest, his heart drummed away at a mile a minute, coughing up pools of sweat as an aftermath. Due to his huddled position, his eyes now focused on the exposed flesh of Roman's board chest, and the scent of the older man sent him into a lust-driven frenzy – one that made no qualms about adding to the immense strain that had already been present in his erection.

"Roman." A soft voice called, bringing his heart to a sudden halt. "I'm sorry." Blue eyes craned as far upwards as they could without moving the head they were attached to, and found in their sights a fragmented figure of a person now leaning down to Roman. In slow motion, he watched slightly terrified as the figure leaned into the side of Roman's face, leaving behind the sound of a light smacking sound – denoting that lips had just left Roman's cheek. "Goodbye."

The figure quickly turned away and slipped through the crack in the door – returning it to a closed position without so much as a trace of it having had been any different.

Feeling the tension of the first few seconds lifting from his body, he slowly raised his head and found the room void of the visitor. Curious, he began to sit up only to feel Roman's heavy arm quickly falling across his stomach and clutching on for dear life. His eyes looked down at Roman's arm, and soon followed it back to the older man. Still locked in the confines of sleep, Reigns shuffled forward to deepen his hold on the slender waist chained beneath his muscular arm.

"Don't… go" He mumbled much to the surprise of the man he lay clinging to. "Please…" His voice cracked, "don't go."

An uneasy silence soon infested the room and held its ground firmly above both men. After much time spent inside the silent chamber, he decided to slip back down and huddle close to Roman – a reaction that was well rewarded when the older man held him close, and returned to him the memory of peace he once shared with a tiny Moxley lying next to him on his prison cot bed.


	11. Seeds Of Truth

Conjured up in a far off, and rather unseen distance (unless the prying eyes belonged to the lenses of a multi-million dollar machine perched high atop a mountain or rooftop) a thin wave of early autumn wind crashed against the pores of his face – rustling through the mess of blonde sat atop his head and gathered around his jaw and chin. To the unexpected chill of the early morning breeze, he grabbed hold of the edges of the large plaid sweater, and bundled it around his neck – taking care to hold it in place with his free left hand. As for his right, the slender roll of calming nicotine sat kingly between the crevices of his dominant fingers, with the charred end briefly glowing a bright orange to the feel of a strong intake of nurturing oxygen. Comforted by the warmth of the oversized sweater, he took the moment to take another lengthy drag of his cigarette, before placing the hilt of his wrist atop the board edge of the steel railing. Caged safely behind the vertically blessed row of bars, he leaned forward a bit over the railing, allowing his head to extend a bit atop his covered neck, and focusing his eyes on the struggling sunlight that rose at a snail's pace. With nothing but flat lined greenery, random speckles of trees, near lavender skies littered with striking rays of bold yellowed orange, and a low-lying sheet of fog originated from a heavy morning dew – the countryside beyond this small plot of concrete legally noted as a 'town' held the greatest view of day break. Even after nine years of traveling to places he'd rather forget, with a gentle smile on his face, his mind easily succumbed to the realization that heaven had been right here all along.

As his cigarette came back to his lips for another long drag, blue eyes began to focus more intensely on a distance not easily measured by worldly instruments. Once at that distance, his mind took a lazy turn towards the jumbled mess of thoughts that had been rendered as such as a result of what transpired last night. In that moment, his face lit a fire with a shade of red normally found on harvest-ready raspberries, as he toiled mentally over every inch of his rejoining with Roman Reigns. At one point in his life, back when he pined for age eighteen, the impact Roman Reigns had on him was so detrimental that there were times when normal body functions – functions like breathing – became a very real, and true challenge to accomplish. Nine years later had only worsened his condition, as no sooner did Roman strip himself half-naked, did he find himself unable to recall how to keep his heart beating. Time had been kind to the large Samoan – evident in his chiseled body and wonderfully baby-soft skin – whilst to his own team, time merely bestowed him with nineteen-eighty body hair, a scruffy voice and equally scruffy look that would have been considered amatory if not placed so close to Roman Reigns.

With cigarette placed firmly between his lips, he successfully ridded his mind of the road it was trying to travel by bringing back to memory the sound of Roman's voice as it rumbled in the deepest corners of his ears, words like 'sexy' and 'love'. Words he truly believed he would never have heard the older man speak to him again.

Words, which once he got here on that fateful evening, he believed Roman had long since reserved for Seth Rollins.

The name fell hard atop his brain – carrying as much weight as the anchor of a warship – and forced his vision to retract from the sweet memories of the rekindling of his relationship status with Roman Reigns. Safe to say, he thought, their relationship was now back on the path it needed to be on if he could easily shout from this very balcony the words _'He's mine world! Roman is mine!'_ The very thought put a smile on his face, only to find itself crashing to a rather saddened expression the moment he recalled the name Seth Rollins, and brought back to memory the young man's existence.

For whatever the two men were, Roman very clearly cared deeply about Seth Rollins (he could not bring himself to state that the older man loved Rollins, as he felt betrayed even thinking it), and for that, he knew – with cigarette in mouth – that the blonde-brunette would always be around to remind him that those nine years he wanted to forget would never go away. With blue eyes staring at the ground below the two-story balcony, he thought deeply on how much he regretted leaving behind the only person who mattered – and how much he hated returning to find someone else residing in that person's heart and world. A world he had tried all his teenage life to get to rotate around him and him alone. They were selfish thoughts, which he once believed to be a part of his young adulthood life, only to discover now that they had not changed in the least. Despite seeing Rollins, and being forced to watch Roman pander to the younger man's cutesy plays, he found it slightly shocking that what truly ate at him was not the guilt of leaving all those years ago. What ate at him was a thick muck of jealously. He was quite simply jealous because where Rollins was, he used to be, and where he was now – standing on Roman's balcony, wearing Roman's shirt, Roman's sweater, and a fresh pair of his own underwear, having been ravaged countless times the night before by Roman Reigns – was still not enough. Somewhere inside him, beyond the burning feeling of carbon monoxide, he could not help but wonder on what kind of hold he now had on Roman. The older man had proclaimed his love for him even though nine years had kept them apart. However, even with the reaffirmation of those feelings last night, he could not shake away the idea that what should have been a victory was likely to be a crushing defeat. It was a truth he knew could be proven if Roman ever knew of Seth's midnight visit and subsequent disappearance.

"You look sexy in my clothes, Dean." The husky tone – still plagued by sleep – startled Dean to the point where he lost hold of his cigarette. Still lit, the thin stick of lung cancer fell down rapidly, and hit the ground with a silent thud.

The blonde began to turn, only to feel the heavy weight of a half-naked body press against his back – watching as large, muscular arms slid around the lower half of his waist.

"Although," A light kiss came to the back of his neck – sending his heart rate into a short-circuiting frenzy. "I prefer you without the clothes."

"Roman." He called in a low voice, smiling as he did. "What are you doing up so early?"

"My bed was cold." Reigns replied with his chin resting on Dean's shoulder. "And I smelt breakfast cooking." A heated breath slipped out of Roman's nostrils as he cleared his airways to fully inhale the skin lining the small of Ambrose's neck. "Thanks for saving me the trouble, otherwise I'd have to cook for Mr. Pouty Pants, and I don't think you left me with much strength to do that after last night."

A rush of residual heat erupted from the pores of his neck as he felt Roman's lips pressing into them. Nevertheless, what felt warm immediately iced over the moment Dean's soul sunk to the sudden realization of who Roman was referring to. To the knowledge, the deafening sound of his conscience rang throughout the cavity of his brain, sing-songing as it did the words _'tell him'_ over and over again. Instinctively, he placed his hand back and gently ran his fingers through Roman's silky hair. The older man buried his face in the small of Dean's shoulder, allowing for the peaceful moment to claw from beneath the light frost, and steady on them a while longer. With each light breath coming from Roman, Dean felt himself less and less inclined to speak what he had known for the most of their precious night.

Seth had gone.

So easy were the words, however not so easy was the means and courage needed to say them. Such was the dilemma that had Ambrose staying mum past the expiration date because his mind desperately wanted him to think on the very fact that he was sharing a dawn he never thought he'd see again, with a man he never thought he'd see again. To add, the blonde kept silently running mindless fingertips through Roman's hair as a way to ward off the sickly bit of knowledge he held when it came to Roman's reaction to such words. Even based far from Randy Orton's cold-cut analogies of despondent correlations stemmed from mere happenstance, Dean knew for a certainty that had he stated those very words – had he taken this second to relay Seth's current whereabouts – Roman would let go and become completely occupied with thoughts of Seth Rollins.

Selfishly, he remained silent.

"Dean." Roman spoke with his lips very much embedded in Dean's shoulder. Ambrose held his breath in anticipation of the curveball he hadn't prepared for. The possibility that Roman would choose now to inquire about Seth, and proclaim his worry over the younger man. "Why did you leave?"

Four equally unexpected words, forged into a steely yet sorrowful question, put Dean at a momentary standstill as he began to untangle himself from the answers he had planned to give to any inquiry about Seth Rollins.

"I…" He stopped for a moment in thought. His fingers followed suit and soon he pulled them back and clenched all ten over the flat surface of the railing. "Your family has always been prefect, Roman. You might not consider it like that, but to someone like me, your family was prefect." He sighed heavily – feeling as he did the weight of Roman's head on his shoulder pulling away. "I watched it fall apart, and I watched your father desperately try to keep you on the straight and narrow. He wanted the best life for you Roman, and with your talents, it would have been a cinch to accomplish all the goals he wanted for you. All the fame and fortune of the NFL. All the cherished moments of marriage and children. The house on the hill, the lavish vacations, the beautiful wife. He wanted it all for you, and you made every effort to build yourself to his liking." Dean's head hung slightly lower than it once was – allowing him to see Roman's arms wrapped around his waist. "I always knew there would come a time when I'd have to leave, because I knew that if anything, if _anyone_, would stand in your way, it would be me. And I loved you too much to let that happen."

"So you left." Clambered over the bumpy hills of a hurt tone.

"No." Dean replied much to the surprise of the man holding onto him. "I spent nine years convincing myself that I left for that reason, and you probably did the same, but it's not why I left at all." He gently placed his hand over Roman's – picking idly at the corners of the older man's fingers. "I realized yesterday that the real reason I left was because I was afraid."

"Afraid?" Roman spoke with eyes focused on the visible side of Dean's face. "Afraid of what?"

As a prelude to his response, Dean heaved another sigh – shakily, as the lump in his throat formed upon his embarking of the truth. "My family got evicted from their home while I was staying here with you." Shock set quickly on Roman's face, but went unnoticed by Dean – who had now taken to staring ahead, back into the distance not seen by the human eye. "No one came to look for me. No one cared to do even that. I walked into that broken house and I found that everything and everyone had abandoned me. And not just me. They abandoned even the traces of me. My cat…" His jaw clenched to ward off the oncoming tears, "Moxley. She was left to die on my bedroom floor. She depended on me, and I depended on them, and we had all left her. And then they turned around and abandoned me. It made me realize that no matter how long you know someone, and no matter what the bond between me and that person, I was so easily forgotten. I was something people could just leave behind. And it made me think about you." The lump rattled heavily down his throat, "You have this life just waiting for you. A life of normalcy and pride and joy. A life I couldn't even begin to offer to you. Looking at my abandoned home, I knew the time would come when you'd leave me for that life, and I knew I wouldn't be able to survive something like that. No matter what I told myself, I knew I could never bear a life where you'd just forget everything about me." He held on tightly to Roman's clutching hands, "So I left. I ran away, and I told myself that you wouldn't even care that I was gone. I told myself that you'd be glad that I was gone, and that you'd live your life happily and carefree and—"

"Dean." Roman cut in sharply, before slipping his hands away from Dean's, and using them to force the blonde to face him. With frighteningly sorrowful blue eyes staring up at the calm lake swimming beneath Roman's own orbs, the older man felt his heart break to the sound of how little Dean thought of him, and his feelings. Anger coursed through him to the very thought that the man he loved – and still loved – could truly believe that he could so easily cast him aside. However, upon recalling the troubled childhood Dean Ambrose suffered through, it became a lost easier to swallow the brutal comparison, and subsequently the need grew more in Roman to put to rest all the fears of abandonment that plagued Dean Ambrose – even though nine years had passed, and the older man was still very much here. "I love you." He spoke in a low tone as his forehead rested gently onto Dean's – mixing in stray strands of black and blonde hair that had managed to breach their respective brows. "Ever since I first met you, I've been in love with you. Nine years doesn't change that. Decades later won't either." With a gentle peck placed on Dean's forehead, Reigns pulled back a bit so as to allow himself room to lift Dean's chin upward – subsequently bringing the younger man's face to his. Deep azure eyes stared sweetly at the saddened expression set on Ambrose's face. "I'm sorry I let you leave before. I'm sorry I was a kid who didn't realize how much you were hurting. And I know now that my words probably won't be enough for you, but know that I only want you. I'll only ever want you. I will never abandon you Dean." He smiled tenderly, "Never."

Somewhere inside the caverns of his elaborate heart, Dean felt a sharp pain shoot through each intricate chamber until it dissipated with the onslaught of rapid fire beats that had set in as a consequence. Something inside the younger blonde had broken free of a lifetime's worth of chains, and had now took hold of his entire being. The sudden rush of warmth that flooded his body could be measured as something close to a summer's day, but still near enough to the kind of heat Roman's touch brought to the table. Unknown was this feeling, but it was not unwanted. As such, Ambrose found himself relaxing in Roman's grasp, only to quickly throw his arms around the older man, and just as quickly lock the surprised Reigns in a deep kiss. Not one to argue the moment, Roman quickly returned the favor and tightened his grip on Dean's body. The kiss lasted for the briefest of minutes, but its impact was clearly written on both men's faces.

"You're hurting me Dean." Roman spoke with a large smile on his face.

"How so, Roman?" Dean asked with a sly grin on his face, as he lessened the already close distance stood between them.

Reigns chuckled lightly as he peered at the coy blonde, watching as Dean walked his fingers down his bare chest. "At least let me eat your cooking," His voice deepened as he leaned in towards Dean's ear, "And then I can show you my appreciation."

Ambrose chuckled light-heartedly as he softly replied, "I thought you said you were too tired."

"To cook." He smirked, "Not for you." The sentence ended with a deep devour of Dean's neck – which the older man broke hold of once he was certain he had left a visible mark – and had Roman pulling back from Dean entirely as he headed towards the kitchen.

Dean smiled as he watched Roman coolly saunter over to the kitchen area, only to dish himself a plate of eggs and bacon, pour a cup of freshly brewed coffee, and take a seat at the table. With the sun now risen above the coldness of a near-forgotten night, Ambrose took up his ashtray and emptied it into the bin nearby – heading back inside once he did. The sound of the balcony door closing brought Roman's attention up from the nearly polished off plate of food. His eyes caught Dean walking to the kitchen, and watched happily as the younger man plated his own breakfast and took a seat in front of him.

Dean picked idly at the crisp edges of his egg, "It's not as good as your cooking, but—"

"It's good." Roman cut in lightly as he chomped down the reminder of his bacon (Force of habit had him leave the meat for last). "Better than I ever dreamed."

Ambrose smiled shyly at the pointed flattery – a stark difference from his confident attitude mere moments ago – as he too joined in eating his own breakfast. The saltiness of the egg had him reeling, but the true knockout came from the oily bacon. The black coffee was the only saving grace.

After the warm liquid had traveled the entire length of his esophagus, Dean spoke up in a rushed tone. "You lied! This tastes like crap!"

Roman laughed loudly at Dean's desperate antics to rid the varying tastes from his tongue. "I didn't lie. I just happen to like my eggs burnt and salty, and oil dripping from my bacon." Ambrose shot him a hard stare, causing Roman to poorly hide his own amusement. "How about tomorrow you wake me up to help you cook?"

"Tomorrow?" Dean asked in a low voice – his expression shifting as the words set in.

"Yeah." Roman spoke confidently, "Tomorrow. Next week. Next year." He leaned on the table, "The rest of our lives."

The words put a heavy beating on Dean's heart in a far better way than a few more strips of his kind of bacon would have. Words like tomorrow or next week were simple in such a way that people who heard or spoke them merely did so without much thought of their impact, and their subsequent uncertainty. Tomorrow for Dean Ambrose never truly existed. For the majority of his life, the blonde had thought of tomorrow to be nothing more than something you either woke up to or you didn't. On the other hand, however, the blonde was never so enigmatic as to believe in the mantra of living in the moment – that kind of thinking warranted a free spirit, something he was not. Rather, for Dean, life was simply the movement of different gears and parts that pushed along the machine called the world. At any moment the gears and parts he controlled could cease to exist, and such cessation was more than likely to happen in the day he stood in, rather than the day yet to come.

Hearing those words from Roman Reigns made Dean as uncomfortable as sitting on a bed of nails, but at the same time, the blonde felt himself be uplifted by their warmth and overall security. Tomorrow truly existed for him, and for what he and Roman had. However, in the same breath, it also did for one Seth Rollins.

And what Seth Rollins shared with Roman.

"Roman" Dean called out, regardless of his logic screaming emphatically at him to keep silent on the issue.

To his name, Roman perked up a bit – having been subject to watching Dean stare blankly at the food set before him, "What is it?" He asked with a small smile.

Dean clenched his fists on the edges of his thighs, as his steely gaze intensified the longer it stared upon his breakfast. "I…" He froze in hesitation, only to drink back the heaviness of his logic-minded chokehold, and bring forth a bolder face. "Who is Seth Rollins?"

For a long moment, Roman stared at Dean's troubled expression as it focused intensely on his rather bewildered one. A few thoughts crash landed inside his mind. A lot of them carried cargo labelled why. Why would he choose now, of all moments, to ask about the one person he tried not to think about? This day was supposed to be about them. Yes, he would eventually go back to thinking about Seth Rollins, however, right now, on the heels of their rekindled love for one another, he wanted nothing more than to pretend that the rest of the world did not exist – because if he did, then it only reminded him of the nine years they had wasted running from each other.

"Why did you…" Dean's expression tightened in a light glaze of fear. Roman took the reaction as is, and noted to himself the need to tread gently on this issue. Clearly, Dean wanted answers. After all, the blonde had said it once before. If it were him in Seth's position, he would have been just as angry. Therefore, it was only right that he come clean with Dean in much the same fashion that he had with Seth. To take one step forward and two steps back would only end them both in the same place they had started – a place where neither wanted to delve too deep into the feelings of the other because of their erroneous belief that what showed on the surface meant more than what crawled beneath. "The day after you left, I didn't know it would have been the last time I saw you. I just thought you had gone back home for a while, and sooner or later you'd show up back on my doorstep. It wasn't until my Dad passed away that I realized that it had been two years, and you probably weren't coming back." He drew in a heavy breath, exhaling just as profoundly. "After my Dad's funeral, I came back to this place, and suddenly it seemed so hollow and broken. I had lost my entire family in this place, and I had lost you. I had lost everything that ever mattered to me, and I hated this place for it. So, before sunset, I jumped in my truck, and I drove as fast as I could out of this town." Large hands slipped over the lukewarm porcelain of his coffee mug, "While I was driving, I cried my heart out. I cursed everything I ever did in my life, I cursed God, I cursed school… I cursed it all. The whole drive, all I kept thinking was why had I even been put on this Earth if all that would become of my life was emptiness and loss? If all I lived for was to experience this kind of hellish pain, then it was only fitting that I end my life here since it was all I had left to lose." He scoffed lightly as his eyes focused intently on the rim of the cup. Dean continued to look on – more observantly than beleaguered. "I stepped on the gas and felt the wheels chew up the asphalt and gravel, and slowly I began to take my hands off the wheel. Then" He paused before inhaling to a relieved smile, "I saw ten year old Seth walking on the other side of the road. I pulled the brakes on my truck, and flew out of the cabin towards him. He looked right at me with his sunken brown eyes, and just kept on walking. He was rail thin, injured –his leg was bleeding – and he was covered in soot and limestone. I grabbed him, and he didn't even make a sound or react. He just looked up at me with a coldness I can't even to describe, and something inside me clicked. It was like I was looking at an Angel." He smiled lightly once more, before looking up at Dean. "I didn't even think twice when I packed him up in my truck and drove back to town. I hadn't gone grocery shopping that week of my father's funeral, so I brought him over to Randy's diner where he had his first meal. Afterwards, I brought him back here and washed him up, gave him a change of clothes, and tucked him into my childhood bed." Blue orbs shifted a bit around the small space, before looking back at Dean. "It's been seven years since then, and no matter how crazy he makes me sometimes, I've never once regretted picking him up."

Ambrose thought on Roman's tale – finding it a heart-wrenching and extraordinary all at once – only to settle down on the more rational parts of his brain. "Hasn't his parents ever come by to look for him?"

"He has no parents. He told me that they died long before I found him on the roadside." Roman spoke dryly, as his eyes slipped away beneath the low overhang of heavy eyelids and long eyelashes, "I'm the closest thing he's got to family, and he's the only family I have."

"Family?" Dean enunciated as a sign of his own disbelief to the term Roman used as a label of his relationship with Rollins. "But…I thought…"

Roman peered at him curiously, "What?" Dean tensed to the inquiry – successfully peaking Roman's intrigue. "You thought what, Dean?" He asked far less openly as he had before – a sign that he had already figured out what sat on Ambrose's mind. After a long moment of stagnant silence had passed over their heads, Roman let out a long, and exasperated sigh to break the hold. "I didn't stay here in this town only because I believed you'd come back, Dean. Seth is one of the reasons I've stayed here. Every time I went to the city to look for you, and every time I thought about not coming back, I remembered Seth and found myself unable to leave. Even though I never forgot you, or stopped wishing you'd come back, Seth…he gave me a different purpose in life. He gave me a reason to wake up on those days when I missed you so much I thought I'd die." He leaned forward with hands resting calmly on the table, "I care for and love Seth, but he is my brother. You are my lover, Dean. That will never change."

Dean nodded gently in unrequested agreement to Roman's generalization of what separated him from Seth Rollins, allowing the older man to freely leave the table and busy himself with clearing the sink of dirty dishes. The moment in itself turned out to be bittersweet the longer Dean found himself looking at Roman stood in the kitchen with his board back turned to the table and rest of the room. On one hand, the blonde was utterly ecstatic to hear that no matter what, the relationship part of Roman Reigns belonged to him and him alone. However, there was the brotherly side that Seth Rollins held claim to, and in Roman's own words, that was not subject to change. Knowing that there would always been someone else present on Roman's mind, and residing in a part of Roman's heart put a stake in Dean's emotions – forcing him to feverously fend off the creeping muck of jealously that tried to siege his entire being. The efforts paid off in their own way as Dean managed to keep his expression majorly unchanged in face of a truth he wasn't expecting, however it did little to rid his mind of the memory of Seth Rollins' silhouette slipping away into the night.

A memory he knew he had to share now with Roman.

"Roman" He called stiffly – altering the tempo of his voice as he did. The older man raised his brow as he looked at Dean from over the rise of his shoulder. Having Roman's momentary attention dampened his fiery attempt at confession, only to watch that attention slip mercifully back to the kitchen sink. "About Seth…he—"

"Mr. Reigns!" The entrance of a foreign voice belonging to neither man quickly hijacked their attentions, and forced it to the open window at the face of the room. "Mr. Reigns are you up there?" Roman looked to Dean, to find that the man had already beaten him to the course, before rapidly wiping his hands off on a nearby small towel, and heading over to the window – pushing it up further so as to look outside. Dean followed aimlessly, choosing to stand a bit beside the window so as to remain unseen by the person stood on the sidewalk.

"Bo!" Roman shouted with his body halfway out the window, "I told you to stop calling me that!" He smiled lightly, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm picking up Seth for school, Sir." The long-haired teenager replied whilst standing outside of his running truck. "I told him I would when I dropped him off yesterday."

Roman stood back a bit perplexed. Dean watched as all sorts of short-lived and sporadic emotions hot-flashed across Roman's face – draining the blood from it as they did.

"He went to your house yesterday!" Roman shouted back with nerves raw and stinging. "Why are you coming here to pick him up when he's supposed to already be with you?"

"He never came to me, Sir." Bo answered, only to quickly side-step his confusion for true worry, "I left him here. He should be here."

A state of indescribable shock set on Roman's face – now paled by the life-threatening loss of blood – the longer his mind perched blankly on the starkness of a most dreaded reality. Sensing Roman's heart rate exceeding its own limitations, Dean stepped closer and placed a gentle hand on the tense triceps muscle bulging from Roman's board shoulder. To the cool feel of fingertips grazing the heat of his skin, Roman looked over his shoulder with wide blue eyes – unsure of what to make of the face now in his line of sight.

"Come on." Dean spoke as he pulled down the window – shutting it in the process. "Let's go find Seth."


	12. Chasing Happiness

The tremulous boiling of an angry coffee pot wrenched him from his deep slumber. The clinking of porcelain and glass set a light, and pleasant tone amidst the scent of sweet pancakes and scrambled eggs seasoned with the flavors of a garden. With slow, and somewhat deliberate movements, he kicked aside what little bit of sheet still covered him, and sat up on the bed after convincing himself that the task was necessary. Laughter not belonging to him wafted into his tiny bedroom, and forced him to attest far more energy into properly rising from the nadir of tempting sleep so as to rid himself of the unnecessary cloud of confusion that had slipped into the cracks of his fragmented mind.

With both feet successfully on the ground, he pushed himself off the edge of the bed, and shuffled stiffly out the door. On the other side, the smiling face of a little girl lit a brighter light than what flowed in from the outside, as she pushed back from her place around the table and ran towards him.

"Daddy!" She squealed in absolute happiness. "You're awake!" She spoke not taking a breath, before yanking on his hand, and leading him towards the table – oblivious in some regards to his choice of near nakedness. "Look, Mommy and I made you breakfast!"

"You did?" He spoke beneath the grogginess of the sleep still stuck to his vocals as he allowed himself to be set down in the chair next to hers. His barely open eyes tried their best to see past their own redness and grasp fully the view of what laid out before him. A set table of a full course breakfast, joined by two women he never believed he would see again in any circumstance. "Thank you." He spoke kindly with a side smile, much to the delight of the little girl.

For a while, the surreal conditions of his situation forced him to do nothing more than watch the two women eat, before joining in the consumption of breakfast he did not have to cook. The idea was reliving as it was stunning. As he slowly chewed on his first bite, he thought on nothing more than how shot to hell his normal routine had been since he opened his eyes this morning. Normally, by now, he would have been downstairs, making coffee, and setting up the table by the window. And then he'd wait. Wait in the back kitchen until the chimes rang – heralding the arrival of his unpaying customer.

"Is it good, Randy?" The sweet voice behind the innocent question brought Randy back to the table where he sat.

He looked across the table to find the fresh face, and gentle smile of Samantha looking back at him. His eyes darted to the feel of something digging into his side, only to find the girl next to him staring back with her large blue eyes. Quickly he took another bite, and looked back at Samantha.

"It's good." He spoke dryly, "Thanks."

"I remembered how to make your favorite breakfast." She scoffed lightly, before standing up and heading to the kitchen. "You still take your coffee black?"

"Ye—" He thought, "No." He looked to the brunette with a small smile, "Sugar please."

She nodded politely before pouring two cups of coffee. Randy watched her for a moment, allowing himself to be captivated by her seamless movements, before catching a glimpse of the red mug she held to her lips. Without much thought, the older man stood up and ran towards her – grabbing the mug, spilling the contents on the floor, and startling everyone in the room, himself included.

"What are doing Randy?" She asked with as much perplexity as she was allotted, given the circumstances.

The older man looked at her with a fleeting harsh stare, before sighing out loud and putting the cup in the emptier side of the sink. "Use any other mug." He grabbed hold of the counter's edge as his voice grated against the side of his throat. "Not this one."

She looked on slightly confused, before glancing to the cup set upright in the bowel of the steel sink. "Does it belong to that kid?" She asked softly. "The one who came by last night?"

Randy looked over to her with a confusion settling first atop his brow, before an underlining understanding took the reins. "What are you—" He stepped closed to her with ire boiling through his veins, "He's of no concern to you, Sam."

"He _is_ of concern to me, Randy." She spoke bluntly, crossing her arms over the spread of her chest "Think of Alanna."

His eyes widened with a glow of his growing anger, "Don't you dare make this about her when you—"

"Don't fight." The timid voice crashed into the tension and brought back the attentions of both adults stood in the kitchen. "I don't want you to fight."

With a short-lived glance of mutual understanding, Samantha stepped out from the kitchen and headed towards the little blonde girl still sitting at the table.

"Don't worry Alanna." She smiled as she gently caressed the young girl's hair. "Mommy and Daddy love each other. We would never fight."

Randy tensed his jaw for a moment, as he looked at the red mug staring back at him. Instantly he turned away and headed back to his seat. The little girl immediately wrapped her arms around him and held on tightly.

"I love you Daddy." She spoke into his T-Shirt-clad chest.

Once more, Randy felt himself shackled in a crippling tension. He knew the source of his unrest, but when it came packaged in such bountiful innocence, it became harder to resist.

"I love you too." He gently grabbed her in a short embrace. "I love you too." He parroted much more silently as he began to peel away from her warmth.

Sensing the incoming distance, Alanna held on tighter – refusing to let go of the older man – and buried herself in his chest. Randy looked uneasily at Samantha – who was stooped at the colder end of Alanna's embrace – before sighing under a heated breath.

"You should go get ready." He spoke kindly. "It's almost time for you to go home."

The little girl bit into her lower lip, before pushing away from Randy. She stared at him with tears in her eyes, turning away before the older man could say anything to heal her heart. With the bathroom door slammed loudly behind her, the room fell into a deep silence that clung on well past its own expiration. Randy looked at the food that had been neatly placed on the table. Samantha's plate was near empty. Alanna's was too, except for the fruit. When his eyes went to his own plate, Randy felt a light sting press deep into his wounded soul. He had barely eaten what his guests had prepared for him. Inside, he wanted to blame sleep should the question arise, but nowhere inside his being could he find the ability to convince himself and his audience of such a lie.

"You couldn't even let her down nicely." Randy tensed to the sound of the brunette's voice. "I don't remember you being so cold, Randy."

"I have you to thank for that, Sam." Grey-blue eyes looked up fiercely at the younger woman. "Now tell me what you meant when you said—"

A loud crashing sound – followed by the distinct sound of glass breaking – startlingly bowled into the room, and shook both adults seated at the table. Instinctively, Samantha quickly stood to her feet and bolted into Randy's bedroom – pulling open the bathroom door in on swing. The little girl lying inside the water of her bubble bath stared back at her startled mother with just as much fear reflected in her bright blue eyes.

"Mommy?" She inquired cautiously.

"Sam!" Randy shouted from his bedroom, causing the brunette to turn away for a moment. "Is she alright?" He asked just as he broke the doorway. Sam stood in front of him so as block his view – an action he quickly noted and returned by turning his back to both girls.

"She's fine." Samantha responded with clear terror riding her words, "Randy, what was—"

"Orton!" A loud voice called from the staircase.

Randy looked to his front door with uneasiness, before turning and grabbing hold of the brunette's shoulders. She looked back a bit frightened at the older man glaring back at her.

"Sam, listen to me—" The door banged loudly as something hard and heavy ran into it. The sound caused Randy to look over his shoulder. He quickly assessed the door's predicament, before turning back to the scared woman held in his grasp. "Stay here!" He barked, before turning away and slamming the door on any rebuttal she might have had.

The front door buckled again to the force being put on it from the other side. Calmly, Randy closed his bedroom door, and sprinted in haste towards his kitchen. He pulled through the drawers, and shifted through the silverware until he landed on a handcrafted wooden box. Another loud bang came from the door, urging Randy to quickly open the box and take into his hands the .44 Magnum set inside. After checking that it was loaded, the short-haired brunette headed to the door and took aim at it. Another hit was delivered from the other side, and this time the door did not put up a fight. It broke at the weak point, and in barged a long-haired, messily dressed Samoan.

The ire-filled man looked from left to right in quick succession, before stopping his movements to the sight of a gun barrel staring down at him. For a moment, both men stood staring at each other – one from behind the body of a bullet-launcher, and the other at the end meant for bullet-catching – before Randy came to the realization of who stood in his home.

He calmly put back the safety on his gun, and began to rest it to his side, when the larger man leapt forward and threw him back with a vicious punch to the jaw. Randy stayed airborne for what seemed like minutes, only to quickly land bare-back on the cutlery and porcelain filled table. The wooden structure broke upon impact – so did everything else non-metal atop it – and made for little cushioning for Orton's hard landing to the floor. Barely able to comprehend the happenings leading to him writhing in pain, the intruder pounced on him with hard lefts and knuckle-baring rights, all intent on breaking his face.

"Randy!" Samantha's shrilled voice brought Orton out of his disbelief and into survival mode.

After taking a few squarely to the face, he immediately countered the next set and landed his own jaw breaker on the larger man. The move forced separation between the men, and once the Samoan was to his feet, Randy charged forward with a hard tackle to the mid-section. Both men rammed into the ground, but the new position made it so that Randy could now return the beating that had just been dished to him.

"Randy!" Samantha called again, as she ran over to the brunette – tugging at him in an effort to get him off. "Randy, stop!"

Unable to hear reason, Orton pulled away from her, and yanked the dark-haired intruder up to receive a head-butt. The move rattled both men – more so Randy than the latter – but made for a clean take down by the intruder, who lifted Randy off the ground and threw them both through the bedroom wall. Drywall splintered everywhere as the men continued to bleed and fight.

"Daddy!" Alanna screamed in dismay. Randy looked to her for a moment – finding her clothed but still sopping wet – before he felt hands grab hold of his neck.

His eyes looked up widely at the anger bearing down on him in the physical form of another human being. Instinctively, he pushed his thumbs as far down into the man's eyes as he could, forcing the man to loosen his hold. However, the ploy worked little as the man merely shifted his head and continued on in his attempt to strangle Orton to death.

"Roman!" Another foreign voice came in.

With vision blurring, Randy could only depend on his sense of touch as a way to tell him that the man attempting to kill him had been pulled back. Certain of the restraint, Samantha ran over with Alanna towards Randy – aiding the brunette to his feet, and checking on him every step of the way. He calmly reassured both girls that he was fine, and immediately marched over to the three men in his living room.

"What the fuck Roman?!" He barked with little penitence for the child stood in his bedroom. His eyes darkened to the sight of Roman being held down by one man he recognized as Dean, and the other he had true difficulty recalling. "What the hell do you think you're doing breaking into my home?!"

"Where is he?!" Roman barked loudly as he tried to break free of the men holding him to the couch. "Where is he Randy?!"

Slight confusion overcame Orton, as his breathing staggered out in an effort to return normalcy to his bodily functions. "Where is who?"

"Don't fuck with me Orton, I know you have him!" Roman pulled forward to a stance, only to be taken down by Dean and the long-haired teenager. "I know you took Seth!"

"Seth?" He asked with similar perplexity, "He's not here, you asshole!"

"I don't believe you!" He spat viciously as he stared coldly at Randy, "Seth would only go to one other person besides me!" He kicked forward in an effort to break the hold. It proved unfruitful. "He always runs to you when he's angry at me! I know he's here, so stop fucking around and give him back to me!"

To offset the light-headedness that accompanied his brain's full comprehension of the fact that Seth was gone, Randy dug the stubs of his nails into the back of his head and roughly scratched it to keep his composure. "I keep telling you he's not-"

"Is he a high school kid with blonde/brunette hair?" All four men looked to the woman stood in the doorway of the bedroom.

"Yes!" Roman shouted as he broke free from the men holding him. He walked closer to the woman, only to have Randy stand in his way. "That's Seth! Did he come here last night?"

Randy glanced to Samantha, before looking back to Roman. "Ro—"

"He did." Samantha spoke, successfully stumping Randy in his own version of shell shock. The older brunette turned slowly to face her. Seeing all eyes baring down on her, the woman took in a deep breath, before continuing on. "I was downstairs last night, just meandering around in the diner, when I hear a knock on the door." Both Roman and Randy stiffened to the tense pause. "I turned the light on outside and I see a teenager standing outside with his hair in a ponytail. He seemed surprised to see me, and tried to open the door. I held onto it, and locked it."

"Why did you—"

"Why did you leave the door open at one o clock in the morning, Randy, when you're sleeping and Alanna is here?" She questioned without remorse. Orton looked on with a clenched jaw and cold eyes. "Anyways, I locked the door, told him we were closed, shut the blinds and came back upstairs."

"So" Roman spoke from a seemingly far away distance, "Seth's not...here?"

"No." The brunette woman replied dryly. "I'm sorry."

A still quiet settled in the apartment. Roman blinked back to the reality of what was now a thrashed home, and immediately began to feel a bile of guilt build and poison him. He glanced to Orton – finding the man standing in an unreachable shell of himself – before gritting his teeth and turning away.

"Bo!" He barked, calling the immediate attention of the youngest man in the room. "You're Seth's best friend." He placed a firm hand on the boy's shoulder. "Tell me where he would go."

For a moment Bo glanced between Roman's hard yet concerned stare and the motionless audience gathered around, before bringing to himself the courage to response. "T-The city." He spoke rapidly, "He always talked about wanting to go to the city and live there so I guess—"

"Alright." Roman spoke relieved. "You and I are going to the city and we'll look everywhere." Bo nodded in response. Roman patted him stiffly on his shoulder, "We'll take your truck." He looked up at the blonde standing behind the couch. Digging into his pockets, he brought to light a set of keys, which he threw through the air, and watched get caught by Dean's quick reflexes. "Lock up the house and wait for him there. Bo and I will go to the city." He turned to Randy, "Call me if he shows up." His proud stance slumped somewhat, "Please."

Randy nodded his reply, forcing Roman to look away and head out the broken door with Bo in tow. All three adults stood at opposite ends of one another – with Randy being placed coincidentally in the middle.

"Daddy!" Alanna rushed over to Randy – hugging him upon impact – once the majority of the intruders had left.

Randy buckled a bit to her touch, before rubbing the top of her head to calm her mind. He smiled sweetly at her, before looking back at Samantha. She stared back with a knowing expression, before looking to Alanna with a smile.

"Sweetheart." She called, garnering the little girl's attention. "Finish drying your hair. We need to get going."

The little girl held on to Randy for a bit longer in defiance. She looked up to Orton – finding a large smile staring back down at her.

"Listen to your mother, Alanna." He rubbed her head – messing the wetted locks, "It's time to go home."

Reluctantly, she pulled away and headed back to the bathroom. This time, the door closed gently behind her. Randy watched with a waning smile, before sighing heavily and looking to Samantha.

"I know what you're thinking, Randy, but it won't instill regret for what I did." She spoke dryly. "I won't apologize for locking him out."

"I know you won't. You're not that kind of person." Randy's face stiffened as he spoke. "But, all the same, I'm still angry."

A sheepish smile caved on her otherwise stony expression. "Are you going to the city, then?" She spat mordantly.

He sighed as a prelude to his coarse tone response. "I'll see you both off."

She scoffed lightly, before turning around and heading into the near-destroyed bedroom. Randy watched as she packed her things, gathered up the little girl, and walked by.

Unsettled by the sight of his own blood on his shirt, Orton quickly removed the bloodied attire, threw on a new T-shirt, and walked behind the two women - fixing his unkempt track pants as they walked. Dean followed suit in the background – stopping as they did, once their eyes laid set to the broken window courtesy of Roman Reigns.

"So that's how he got in." Randy sighed heavily. "I apologize for my neighbor's behavior."

Samantha shrugged as she walked by the broken glass towards the door. "It's what you get for stealing, Randy."

Orton looked on with a light frown on his face. "I didn't steal that kid from him, Sam."

"But you're going to." She looked back to him with a cheeky smile, "It was nice seeing you Randy."

He inhaled deeply. "Yeah." And smiled, "You too." His eyes slid to the little girl stood beside him. "Alanna" She looked up at him with tears set to fall from her eyes. "You be good to your Mommy okay?" She nodded pointedly in response. Randy knelt down and gave her a long hug – feeling a small part of his heart shatter to pieces once she returned the favor. "Keep safe."

"I love you Daddy." She cried softly.

"I love you too." He kissed her gently on her forehead. "Goodbye Alanna."

She gently sobbed, and mumbled in a soft breath. "Bye Daddy."

Picking himself back up to a full stand, he watched with a saddened gaze the sight of Alanna getting into the backseat of the four-door-truck and being driven away by the older woman. For a moment, all that could be heard were the distant sounds of the rumbling engine, the chimes flitting to the motion of the closing door, and the sound of his own breathing slowing to a halt as his heart just had.

"Randy" Dean spoke to break the silence. The older man continued to look out the glass pane of the door. "I know it's none of my business, and this may not be the best time to—"

"It is none of your business, Dean." Snaked in with a venomous tone, "And this is the worst possible time to ask anything, so don't." He tilted his head slightly upwards, taking in a long, staggered breath as he did. "If Seth shows up, I'll give Roman a call, and bring him to you."

Ambrose set up to say something in that vein, however he knew that whatever had just transpired before his eyes, and whomever the older brunette had to watch leave the confines of his diner and this town, made for just cause to keep silent on issues as volatile as Seth Rollins. With that Dean merely thanked the older man, and headed towards the door.

"Dean, wait." Ambrose did as such – turning to Randy from the doorway.

The older man was standing in the midst of broken glass, scrolling through the contents of his phone. A small smile came to his face.

Curious, Dean headed back towards Orton. "What is it Randy?" Orton held up the screen of his phone to show Dean's vision an enlarged photograph of an outcropping of machinery and white dirt. "Is that a quarry?" He asked the older man in as much confusion as expected.

"It's a limestone quarry." Randy spoke matter-of-factly. "And you and I both know there's only one place that has a relic like this around."

"Bend County." Dean spoke before his mind had a chance to process. "The old stone plant."

The low chime of the phone brought both men out of their similar agreements, and back to the face of the phone.

"_Don't tell Ro_." Dean parroted off the short sentence placed on Randy's phone.

"_Come alone_." Randy scoffed lightly, "Little brat." He smirked coyly, "He's like a terrorist making demands."

Dean looked up from the phone, "Aren't you going to call Roman?"

Piercing eyes locked onto Dean's – holding them in an unwavering gaze, before the older man decided to let go. He turned to the counter and dug around in the drawer present at the back. The sound of metal knocking against one another alerted Dean to the set of keys now in Randy's possession.

"All Roman cares about is bringing Seth home safely." He heaved a heavy breath, "The method doesn't matter as long as the outcome remains intact." His wandering eye caught hold of a sore-looking red spot on Ambrose's neck, peeking out from behind Dean's raised shirt collar. A sly grin slipped onto his face as he gently patted the blonde's shoulder. "Then again, if I don't bring him back, you might actually have a shot at the life you wanted with Roman."

Dean stared silently at the older man, before glancing to the floor. A fragment of his reflection came back to him from a shard of glass. "Seth means a lot to Roman." He looked back to Randy with a hearty smile, "I'm counting on you to bring his little brother home."

To the younger man's reaction, Randy sold the unexpectedness as shock on his face, before nodding away to an inner acceptance of the person Dean Ambrose turned out to be. "It's no fun when you've heard all the secrets." He grinned deviously, "But it can't hurt to tell you one more."

"What is it?" Dean inquired with intrigue.

"Seth Rollins." He smiled lightly, "'Seth' is the name of the front man of _Crazy Town_, the favorite band of one blonde young'un." Dean's eyes widened in effect to what he now heard. "And 'Rollins'" Randy continued, "That's the name of the hospital where baby boy Roman Reigns was born." He took his hand from Dean's shoulder so as to slip it into his own pocket. "The name Seth Rollins is a combination of Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns. It's like he's your child." His smile thinned into a cocky smirk, "So don't worry so much, _Mom_. I'll bring your boy back."

With that, Randy headed out the door, and into his waiting single cab truck. The vehicle started with a pronounced stall, and roared down the road in a direction opposite the one Samantha and little Alanna had just taken. Ambrose turned for a moment to look around at the state of the diner. As he walked the door, he looked down at the sign on the door. With a small smile on his face, he flipped the sign, and walked out – listening to the sweet melody of the chimes as they thanked him on the way out.


	13. The Meaning Of Family

The day had grown hotter, seemingly by the second. The jacket that had served to keep him warm throughout the coldness of the country night, now sat tied at the arms around his waist. There was never a true moment when he regretted having long hair. In fact, he grew it out as a symbol of his admiration for his older brother Roman. However, the heat cared little for symbolism and respect. Rather, it set its hot sights on the mass of hair sat atop his head, and chose there specifically to bake and roast. His eyes wandered aimlessly around the wide open countryside that sat all around him. In a short distance, bits of ruin and rubble materialized and made for his immediate next destination. With one foot pressing hard ahead of the other, he ambled over to the gathering of wood and decrypted landmarks, and found shelter in one of the more sturdy remnants of what used to be his hometown.

Bend County.

A small town by standards of other small towns, but once a place filled with hard working people who lived by the land and how it provided. Food, water, shelter and love. All existed in perfect harmony in Bend, but when a heavy storm hit the land and froze over most of everything, times soon grew desperate, and the people quickly changed. He had barely started walking when his parents died. Soon after, he was sent off to the limestone quarry to help build places no one in Bend County would ever see, all at the expense of their own blood, sweat, and lives. The quarry was far below any safety standards, but the men in suits who visited when the sun wasn't as hot as today, seemed to care little about the poor health of their employees. They also cared even less about the children digging through the hard rock for the white bit of gold. Every winter, another set of people died working in the quarry. And every winter, more townspeople were brought in to replace them.

The cycle continued on until finally there was no one left to take from Bend County. The quarry was soon discovered by men in suits who cared in some regards, and it was quickly shut down. Dismantling the large bits of machinery would cost too much, and so, the men who had killed Bend County, packed up in their fancy cars, and drove away – leaving the town to perish under the shadow of the metal monster that they had created. Nomadic travelers settled in the town, thieves ransacked what little was left, and all the while no one cared much for the small child who sat alone in the corner, staring back with deprived eyes and feeling the implosion of his body as it ate away at him in ravenous hunger. Days passed by and soon even the travelers stopped coming. The thieves gave up too. Soon nothing sat in the old town of Bend County except the small boy. Everything else had died. Everything, but him.

Now, nearly a decade later, it felt strange. Sitting in the corner of what was left of someone's home, and staring out at the tidbits of light that came in from broken windows, open doorways, and the holes in the caving roof. Knowingly, he could easily go back to the home he now had with Roman and the people of that town. Bo was probably worried. Roman was definitely worried. Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe now, with Dean returned to his side, Roman no longer cared about the kid sitting in the corner hoping that someone would reach out and love him. Maybe, after seven years of pure bliss and Heaven, this was how his story was set to end. A no name kid from a forgotten town returns to that town with a name given to him by a man called 'brother' – huddled in the corner waiting to die.

The idea brought tears to his eyes, and without much of a fight, his body caved to the sadness, and he brought his knees to his face and held on to himself tightly – sobbing loudly as he did. There was a part of him that truly hated the existence of Dean Ambrose. Even before the older man had come to town with a small backpack. Even before they knew each other's name. Truthfully he felt that there had always been a piece of him that would look at Roman and hate the person responsible for causing his older brother so much pain. It was understandable hatred given that Seth had spent most of his childhood being Roman's crutch on the days he didn't want to wake up, and shoulder to cry on the days he stayed awake for far too long. However, as Roman drove him to school the morning previous, and talked with him about things he knew, didn't know, and didn't _want_ to know, he now found it a little difficult to still hate Dean Ambrose. Sitting in the belly of a place no longer on any legitimate map, he slowly felt himself understand that his new found inability to truly abhor Dean Ambrose was simply because of what the blonde now stood for. And what Dean stood for was Roman's happiness. As much as it hurt to admit it, he understood now – having had all the time in the world to think things through – that as much sadness as Dean Ambrose caused, Roman Reigns was only wholly complete whenever the blonde was around. Pieces of him weren't missing anymore. Dean returning had returned to Roman the broken parts of himself that the young brunette could never piece back, and sadly, he now found himself finally coming to terms with the truth of that fact.

As he sat on the battered floorboards of a stranger's home, he mourned the loss of the part of Roman he could never reach. As the tears flowed, he soon found himself shifting his sad loyalties over to another equally salient fact – one that hurt a bit more than the last.

At age ten, when he chose to walk out on the roadside, he was looking for a place to die that was far away from Bend County. He hadn't even noticed Roman until the larger man picked him up and drove him into town. Years later, it was discovered that the man he called brother had also been out on the road looking for death. To add, their reasons were similar, in that both men had lost everything but their own lives – something they both set out to trade away in exchange for vanquishing the pain of loneliness. It took a while longer for him to discover the only difference in their stories. And that difference was Dean Ambrose. Roman loved one person so completely that even though he knew that person was probably never coming back, he never once cursed or hated that person. Rather, Reigns loved that person more with each passing day and each tear-jerking memory.

Having now been subject to the interactions of Roman and Dean, Seth quickly realized that what he himself lacked was a Dean Ambrose. He lacked someone he loved beyond 'family' ties, and that lacking had made it near impossible for him to ever break past the title of little brother in Roman's eyes. Such recognition hurt, and quickly possessed Seth with the thought that he would have to carve from someplace the kind of love Roman had for Dean. As a start, he looked for qualities that he loved in a person. Qualities like warm personalities, overwhelmingly kind and giving hearts, bright smiles, and even long hair. For the duration of his quest, he quickly realized that what he was looking for was a Roman Reigns that he could love like a Dean Ambrose. The idea crossed his mind many times to simply take a shortcut and go for the real thing, however it all fell apart whenever he thought about ruining the brotherly relationship that they shared. For that reason, he tried Bo. His classmate since middle school, Bo had most of qualities that made for a mini Roman. He even had the hair. Nonetheless, no matter how much he drank, the equally aged teen could be nothing more in his eyes than a really good friend.

Then he tried Randy Orton.

The name brought more tears to auburn-kissed tired eyes as his mind wandered over the nature of their relationship. To him, Randy was as good a friend as Bo, but with a very limited ability to spoil him as badly as Roman did – limited and after much resistance. For a long time, Randy stayed in limbo when it came to what he thought about the older brunette. The older man's cryptic, sarcastic, and often time's cruel nature played as a disadvantage, and nearly put the brunette solely out of the running on his hunt for his own embodiment of Roman's decade-long feelings for Dean Ambrose. However, having come back to where his very life began, and most fittingly needed to end, he was now faced with the crushingly real possibility that Randy Orton had already exceeded a man like Dean Ambrose. At some point, possibly as his mind sat beneath the clutter of his inability to share his brother, Randy Orton had bypassed the checklist set unknowingly before him, and instead became something far more precious.

Having been subject to the sight of a woman sitting in the chair Randy set out especially for him, and then being closed out of the sanctuary Orton had created for him by that very same woman, hurt more than his chapped lips and tired feet. Even when Dean had come into the space he shared with Roman, even when the men in suits invaded his hometown, never had he felt the sense of rage that he did when he watched the night-gown clad woman close the blinds on him. Someone else was in his place, and for the first time ever, it hurt. It hurt to the point that he had to walk miles on foot until something else hurt far worse. Regardless, once he rested his weary feet, and dehydration subsided for a moment, the stinging pain in his heart returned with vengeance. All at once he wanted to scream at Randy, hit him, hate him, and hurt him. Then, once he had let it all out, he knew now that he probably would return to Orton's side, even if that place no longer belonged to him.

"What are you doing over there, Seth?"

Rollins immediately opened his eyes, and looked up just as quickly. The sunlight bathed the chiseled figure of one weary-looking Randy Orton. Afraid he had gone mad from heat, and heartache, Seth rubbed his eyes ferociously, and looked back at the older man. The distance between them had separated greatly in that time, as Randy had taken it to walk over to a sitting Seth Rollins.

"Come on." He stated with his arm outstretched to the younger man. "Let's go home."

Entranced by the current status that was Randy Orton's very real presence, Seth extended his hand halfway, only to be suddenly bombarded by his toxic memories – forcing in an instant his hand to stop midway, and quickly U-turn back to holding his knees.

Childishly, he buried his head in the make-shift pillow provided by the bent joints of his knees. "Just go by yourself!" He snapped viciously, slightly muffled by his pants' fabric. "Leave me alone!"

Feeling the coldness of his rejected helping hand, Randy soon curled his fingers into a tense fist as he dragged his arm back to his side. He looked at the young man sitting in the corner of the old house, and watched as Seth tightened his arms around his own knees – further burying his head.

"I can't do that." Stumbled coarsely over his lowered voice.

Seth peeked up from above the rise of his knees and forearms, and held an uncertain stare on Randy's face. "Why not?" He inquired amidst the rapid drumming of his heart muscles.

"Because…" Grey-blue eyes snapped away from the large-eyed stare of the sitting brunette. "Roman's worried sick about you."

The words sunk a depressive anchor on the expectations that had flooded his blood stream. Once upon a time, Rollins knew those very words would have instantly put him in a state of happiness. However, hearing them now from the mouth of Randy Orton put him in a position squarely set between heart break and the branding pain that followed shortly afterwards.

A snarky scoff filled the room. "Ro isn't worried." Randy turned his eyes back to Seth, finding the man huddling back to himself. "He doesn't care enough anymore to worry about me."

Randy narrowed his cold gaze on the younger man. "Roman cares about you. He loves you and you know it, so just—"

"He doesn't need me anymore!" The unexpectedness of Seth's quick outburst caused the older man to flinch back a bit – having been hit head on with its full force. "He's got Dean now, so he doesn't need me anymore!" His voice cracked, but kept pushing past the limits of the sound barrier having grown louder with every bit of molten emotion that dripped off Seth's words, "Not my parents! Not this town! Not Roman! Not even you! No one needs me!" Orton watched as the younger man's hands clutched onto his forearm and inner calf – squeezing his whole body tightly into itself. "Why did you come?"

A short moment of silence encompassed the musty air filling the ruined house. "You asked me to come alone, remember?" His voice etched precariously over the fluctuating hills of gravel that outlined his pained tone. "So here I am. As you asked."

The sole of his shoes gently raked across the wood floors, as he pulled them back more as though trying to completely compress his body into a tight ball. "It was a mistake sending you that message. Sorry you had to waste gas coming out here, but you can go back without me." A resounding stab pierced heavily through his rapidly beating heart. However, he trekked past it, and held himself close to brace for impact. "Just go back to your girlfriend, and leave me alone."

"Girlfriend?" Randy paused for a moment in thought, before letting out an exasperated sigh. The reaction brought Seth's timid gaze back to Randy – finding the man walking closer to him. "She's not my girlfriend."

The words played as a double-edged sword in that, on one side, Seth was overjoyed by the declaration, but on the other side, the woman he saw early this morning had to be of some importance given that she was allowed to stay with Randy. The sharper of the two sides quickly won out, and the blonde/brunette put his head back down, and stiffened his grip on himself, as Randy sat down on the floor next to him.

"Even though you think I'm a brat, I know when someone's lying Randy."

"I'm not." Orton sighed once more, and just as quickly, grabbed hold of the back of Seth's head.

Rollins' struggled as a natural reaction to suddenly having his head held down forcibly onto the points of his knees. However, before the younger man could maneuver his escape, Randy leaned down closer, and placed his lips on the exposed skin covering the back of Seth's thin neck. The brunette immediately tensed to the feel of Orton's lips and tongue on his skin – heat flowing out from where Randy had attached himself, with as much ferocity as the White Water Rapids. To the biting pain that shot through the piece of neck that Randy had seen fit to commandeer, Seth immediately pushed up from his knees – nearly knocking into the decrypt wall sat behind his back – and grabbed the hurting spot with a quick-drawn hand.

"What are you—"

The words in his mind were instantly pushed back by the whirlwind force of Randy Orton. Without warning, the older man grabbed hold of the back of Seth's head, and immediately brought the confused man to his waiting lips. In an instant, he locked the younger man in a devastatingly passionate kiss that soon set fire to what little had remained uncharred on Seth Rollins. With a darting tongue, Randy hungrily tasted every portion of Seth's mouth, before ending the deep kiss by biting the lower lip of the younger man. Having been forced to grab hold of Orton's pace, Seth sat looking back at the older man with an expression that wanted somewhere to be confused, but could not shake the overpowering lust that had wandered onto it like an ill-fitting mask.

"Her name is Samantha." Orton's words hammered down on Seth's current standing, and immediately put the young adult out of his shell of confusing desire and into the waiting arms of reality. "We've known each other since we were children, but it wasn't until we got to high school that we started officially dating one another." He looked out the distant window set a few feet ahead of him, "We got hitched to no one's surprise, and to pay for her College education I joined the Army right after we graduated. I spent a year in the Army, got dishonorably discharged, but she stood by me. I started working three jobs, long hours, anything I could do to bring in money, I did it. Then" He hesitated for a brief moment, his eyes narrowing for that second as though they were trying to see the memory beyond the sunlit window of the abandoned home. "Sam got pregnant, and had a baby. A little baby girl named Alanna Marie. We named her after my grandmother as a memory to her." Blue eyes trailed from the window, to look at the floor lying flat beneath his steel-toe boots. "As cliché as it sounds, when I first saw Alanna in that nursery ward, I couldn't help but think that she was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. She looked like a little Angel, and I raised her with that mindset." A light hearted chuckle slipped from his lips, "She grew up fast, but no matter what, I couldn't shake how incredibly happy she made me. Just her smile made my whole day." The laughter soon died beneath the suffocating aura that now plagued the older man. Seth felt the coldness stemming from Orton, but chose the logical side of himself that called for maturity rather than his usual brand of childish behavior. "When Alanna turned three, she had a seizure which followed up with an intense fever. Sam rushed her to the hospital, and I left work early to be there with them. For days, the doctors tried everything they could to find out what was wrong with her. Eventually, they brought in a doctor from Chicago who specialized in rare illnesses that affected toddlers. His visit cost us a pretty penny, but I drained everything I had to bring him to Saint Louis, and have him look at Alanna. First day he shows up, he takes a quick look at her other diagnosis, and determined that the cause could be something hereditary. He asked Sam and I for a blood test, and we agreed without any hesitation." His chest lifted beneath the fabric of his shirt, and fell just as dramatically upon exhale. "Sam's results proved negative against all known symptoms related to hereditary illnesses in toddlers. When he turned to me, he took a second, and then asked us both to bring in Alanna's real father for the blood test." Heavy eyelids slipped down into a near close, as wintery blue eyes continued to rest upon the sight of the dusty wood floors. "I didn't say anything, or if I did, it never made it out of my mouth. I just watched as Sam put her phone to her ear, and mumble into the microphone. About an hour later, my best friend John Cena walks into the office, gives a blood sample, and we discover that what happened to Alanna was something that naturally happened to toddlers – mostly girls – in John's family line. It wasn't anything permanent. Rather, it was if her entire body was teething, and at age three, her body just wasn't able to handle the stress of it. The doctor gave us her prescription, and told us she would be out in few days." Another long sigh poured from the depths of his lungs. His eyes soon flipped up as his chin titled back – bringing his head to the wall behind his back, and resting it there. "I left before she was discharged. I just—" He paused for a second so as to gather the remnants of his own fledgling control over his innermost emotions – revived by a story he never once believed he would have to tell. "I just drove, and drove, until I ran out of gas. It was Roman who found me on the roadside, and he took me in. I slept on his couch for a few weeks, until one day I saw myself on the news." He scoffed lightly, "Missing person, Randall Keith Orton. Six foot seven, Caucasian male, weighing two hundred and forty five pounds, and driving a black single cab pickup truck." The rotted ceiling above offered fragments of sunlight, and a clear view of the extensive damage time had impressed on the old home. "Roman didn't ask any questions. His Dad took a drink, and then told me that running from the world isn't something people can do, because the world will keep chasing you even long after you've given up on the race." He smiled lightly at the gaping holes staring down at him. Seth watched completely entranced by both the tender smile on Orton's face, and the words that clambered over his rough and low voice. "I went back to Saint Louis. I called Sam from a payphone, and we met at the bus station nearby. She cried, a lot, and asked me to come back home. She told me Alanna missed me. I didn't go back with her. I told her I needed time, and she obliged my request." His voice lowered as his smile fell dramatically, "But I was lying." Seth watched as the older man's jaw tensed as words formed beneath the veins of his mind. "I didn't need time to think things through, because the truth was, my mind was sorely fixated on my losses. Sam didn't belong to me. Alanna wasn't mine. The family I thought I had in them both, never existed in the first place." Emotionally charged words squeezed through the tiny opening present between his clenched teeth, "I spent a lot of years angry at the world, thinking worthless things like _why me_, although I knew the answers would never come." He glanced to Rollins for a brief second – holding the saddened expression on the younger man's face in the lenses of his blue eyes – before looking back to the window ahead. "Meeting you, and seeing the relationship that you have with Roman…it all makes me regret leaving Sam and Alanna behind that night. I was so wrapped up in my notion of the term 'family' that I never thought of it in a different way. I never thought that what defines a family isn't just blood relations. What defines a family is the love and care that goes beyond what you're willing to do for anyone else." He looked back to Seth, "You showed me that Seth. You showed me what a family really is, and because of that I was finally able to face Sam and Alanna. All the years I spent hating every waking moment, washed away when that little girl ran into my arms. All of a sudden I was back at the start, and I truly felt as though I could save my marriage, forgive Samantha, and regain the family I once believed I had lost…but…" He paused momentarily, "…if I did that, then there would be no room for you, Seth. And more than my family, more than _anything_, I wanted you with me." A gentle smile slipped over his thin lips, "I _still _want you with me, Seth." His hand came up to the side of the brunette's face – gently caressing the fragments of soft skin and equally soft hair that lay beneath the skin of his fingers, "I need you."

To the tune of Randy's choice words, Seth felt his face ignite much as it had when Randy's lips were on him. His rapidly beating heart pressed on closer to cardiac arrest – rendering the majority of his bodily functions useless. Due to the imbalance brewing within, as a direct result of what his ears had just been subjected to hearing, his breathing grew heavier as it drew to a likely inevitable stop. In the forefront of his working mind, Rollins' logic began to seek the argument needed to keep at bay what his heart wanted him to do. However, as much as logic tried, there was nothing beyond those three words, and as such, Seth found it far easier to lose all grip on control, and allow himself to be led to where Randy wanted them both to go.

"I—" His voice broke free behind his timid expression, "I love you, Randy."

Randy continued to caress the younger man's face, before scoffing lightly, "Do you?"

"Yes! I do!" Seth looked up at the older man's snarky expression with a tinge of desperation gliding over his own, "I love you!" Orton chuckled lightly to Seth's response – triggering a bit of anger to be mixed in his vat of emotions. "Say you love me too." He pouted.

Randy continued to grin at the younger man – his chin tilted upright so as to shed his eyes on the blonde/brunette from a higher place. "Make me."

Rollins tensed beneath Randy's hand, in response to the older man's callous demand. His furrowed eyes tried in their utmost to shoot a trademark glare to the older man, as Seth attempted to implant his own will into Randy's consciousness. The older man grinned wickedly as he watched Rollins' attempt from a front row seat. Sensing that Orton had caught on to his aims, Seth looked away for a moment so as to gather the resolve needed to commit himself to fulfilling the request of someone other than himself.

In an instant, the younger man leaned forward, and quickly kissed Randy's lips. The older man watched Seth work in his own way to deepen the kiss within the confines of both his own inexperience and the time limit that had been placed inadvertently on the endeavor. After a few short seconds, Rollins broke his initiated kiss, and looked up at the much closer view of Randy Orton. The older man stared back with biting blue eyes, before turning his grin into a gentle smile that melted what was left of Seth Rollins' heart.

"That's all?" Seth's eyes opened wider, and the younger man prepped to say something fueled with bubbling rage, however Randy quickly quenched the fallout of his own arrogance by tightly holding Seth to his chest – feeling calmer now that he had his arms around the younger man. "I love you, Seth." He rested his forehead atop Seth's partially buried head, "I love you."

With his eyes brimming with stinging tears, Seth quickly wrapped his arms around Randy's broad back, and clung on with the bit of strength that had been left to him – having lost the majority of it to Randy's heart-wrenching words.

.


	14. Advent

Heralding the coming of winter, a steady stream of cold air slid through the thin fabrics of his polyester confines and crept over his skin – bringing to a rigid stand all the fine hairs that lined it. The drop in temperature had been something of a more drastic nature rather than a slow progression – given that the mid-afternoon was blistering hot – however, having returned to the Reigns abode and found it as empty as he had left it after dropping off the only two students of the school downstairs, he found it easier to focus less on the cold nipping at him, and subsequently harder to convince himself that he needed to do just that.

From beyond the railing of the suspended balcony, he watched through the thin veil of exhaled smoke as the day dripped away into the darker corners of a vast night. His relentless thoughts of maddening outcomes took hold of him and was the sole reason he stood out here, looking through the windows of glassy blue eyes at the darkness that encamped at the outermost edges of the back light. As he drank from the smoldering ashes clutched between his lips, his mind wandered over his ability to tolerate a wintery cold he had not necessarily been subject to for nearly ten years now. The main reason stemmed from worry. Simple yet powerful, his mind could not ward off the sense of utter dread that came from both sides of the 'find Seth Rollins' spectrum. On one end, Roman probably found Seth by now, and was most likely talking to him before taking him back home. To that idea, he tensed a bit as he thought about how much he needed to rethink his words and actions given his knowledge of who Seth Rollins really is. Subsequently, on the other end of his mindset, he found a more depressing reason behind his monumental worry. Night had caught up with their search, and as such, showcased that it was almost twenty four hours that Seth Rollins had been missing. Roman hadn't returned, and neither had Randy, but the difference was, the latter man would more than likely return – even if he did so empty handed – whilst Reigns would not. Beyond the burning sensation of toxins traveling through his breathing system, a different kind of heat boiled in his gut as a direct result of his own knowledge of the type of man Roman Reigns is. He was stubborn, but that only stemmed from his legitimate fear of being completely alone. The older man had been there once – with family in the ground, and a lover disappeared – and he had made it his sole purpose to never be there again. However, rather than find replacements to fill the void, Roman would rather search for the people he lost until he died, than live with a carbon copy. Case in point, his search for Dean. Although the story warmed his heart – thinking now on how long Roman kept looking for him and never giving up the hope of finding him – it also served as the hammer that broke it once his mind trickled down the channels of comparison. Once there, he found his Roman Reigns spending the next eternity looking for Seth Rollins, and in the same breath, Ambrose noted the new role he would have to take it that were to happen. A role much like Seth's during the years he had been absent. A role wherein his status could be labelled as nothing more than a form of comfort for a man struck by the grief of a loss that his own stubbornness refused to let him accept.

Chunks of ash-laden air clambered nosily over his tongue, forcing him to immediately spit out the bitter taste. His sleeve drew across his wetted lips to wipe away the residual taste, and with a quick shift of his wrist, the half-done cigarette was pile-driven face first into the nearby ashtray, where it was extinguished just as quickly as his thoughts were. Worrying proved detrimental to someone like him, given his track record of spending his time committing to the act so much so that it turned to cowardice, and forced him to finally turn his attention towards a more pressing matter.

He was freezing.

The pupa-stage of what could very well be another long winter had managed to form a hard shell of unforgivably low temperatures around his entire being. For that, he sought the most immediate way to rid himself of the nail-biting cold, and in a quick turn, headed back towards the warmth settled beyond the sliding glass door. A few feet away, the sound of a lock coming undone grated against the noise he made in trying to close the balcony door, and served to garner the full attention of now widened blue eyes. As the lock rattled to an open state, he began walking towards the front door – his heart now beating faster towards disrepair – only to come to a sudden halt at the sight of Roman Reigns.

The older man glanced solemly towards him after pulling out his key from its respective keyhole, and entered the living space with heavy steps. Blue eyes watched on a tense breath as the large Samoan collapsed into the seat of the couch. Sensing the downtrodden aura hovering about Roman's being – and disliking the distance the mood was trying to create – he headed towards Reigns with lips parted for prepped words.

"Hey Dean." He stopped in his tracks to spot a second person – considerably younger and with hair the same length as what trailed from Roman's ponytail – and watched as the young man closed the door on the staircase. "Is he here?"

Noticing that the words had been sent his way, Dean turned his attention mostly to the young man stood by the door. "No, Bo, he isn't." He looked back to Roman – watching as the older man roughly pulled out his hair tie to free his massive ebony mane. "D-Did you—"

"Did Randy call?" Roman inquired with a voice rolled over sheets of rough sandpaper.

A sharp sting pierced his heart upon hearing the pain coming from Roman's voice. "He didn't." Desperate to dissipate the tension, he gently scratched at the back of his head, "I should go look for him. You guys can—"

"We searched the entire city." Roman cut in dryly, as he ran a heavy hand down the length of his face, "He's not there." His voice lowered to a nearly inaudible whisper, "This is all my fault. If I had just…If I had just not—"

"I saw him leaving last night." All eyes fell to him as the young man at the door stared intrigued, and Reigns looked on with an expression borderline disbelief. A moment of conviction passed by, in which he decided against lying – knowing full well his own inability to keep it up. "You were sleeping, and he came into your room. He didn't know I was awake. I listened to him leave, and I wanted to go after him, but you…" He hesitated as his mind put a stranglehold on the words he wanted to say. His eyes glanced up to find Roman looking on with a light frown creasing his forehead. "You…" He bit into his lower lip momentarily, "I couldn't leave."

For a painfully quiet moment, Roman sat staring at the blonde stood a few feet away. His mind went through all the changes of mood with minimal damage to the expression currently sitting on his face. First came the ever predictable anger. Roman wasn't one to anger easily, or quickly, however when it came to the people he truly cared about – truly loved – anger always seemed second nature for a first reaction. He was angry at Seth for leaving and making him go sick with worry. He was angry at Dean for keeping it a secret. And he was angry at himself for putting both men in a predicament wherein they had to. Had to leave. Had to keep it secret.

After the anger faded, a guttural sense of regret swiftly took its place. This feeling scarred his face as it forced his once disbelieving expression to slip through the cracks, and mold to something more heart-broken. He had felt this way before. It was nine years ago, and he was about the same age as the boy stood at his front door, but the raw bitterness that flooded his body proved to him how little he had changed, despite being under the impression of just the opposite. Words were never his strong point, so conveying anything with true heart most times sounded cliché and cheap. On that note, he thought about his talk with Seth the morning he drove him to school. He had told Seth that nothing would change. Yes, Dean was here, and yes Dean was his lover, but what he and Seth shared would not change. Nonetheless, as much as he believed what he had said to the teenager, looking back on his actions, Roman suddenly realized how much of a liar he must have been in Seth's eyes.

"Bo." The young man looked to Roman. "Is there anywhere else Seth would go?" Heavy-lidded eyes slipped towards Bo, "Is there someplace he could be that I don't know about?"

Bo looked on, before setting his saddened gaze to the floor. He shook his head slowly in reply.

To the response, Roman sighed heavily before turning in the couch to set his back into its cushioned frame. Dean watched from an uneasy distance as Roman's shoulders slumped down as though a heavy weight had been added to them. His fingers itched to touch the older man, but he drew back in hesitation. A part of him – logic, as it was so aptly named – quickly advised against the desired advance. _Don't do it_. His mind warned in its usual monotone. _Don't become his shoulder to cry on. _

_You're more than just that._

With the flair of ego thrown in, Dean found it far more difficult to argue back – given his innermost desire to be more than what Seth Rollins had been during those times when Roman's mind and heart could no longer function without Dean Ambrose. However, for the thorough debate that logic had just dished out to him, the simple fact still remained. He wanted to touch Roman. He wanted to remind the older man that he wasn't alone, and someone cared.

Reigns flinched a bit to the sudden feel of a warm hand petting the top of his head. He looked back momentarily and found Dean looking down at him with a smile.

"He's okay, Roman." He spoke with truly baseless confidence.

Roman scoffed lightheartedly as his face tightened its hold on sorrow. "He's just a kid." His jaw clenched, "I'm his big brother. I'm responsible for him. I'm the person who keeps him safe."

"I know." Dean smiled lightly as he gently ran his fingers through Roman's hair. "But he's okay Roman, because you're his brother. You give people strength. I'm living testament to that, so—"

A heavy knocking came to the front door – startling Bo who had taken up residency nearest to it. The noise quickly brought Roman to his feet, and drew Dean along, forcing both men to head towards the door. Given the head start he had allotted to himself, Roman reached the door first and quickly pulled back the wooden structure with a quick twist of the gold knob.

Timid eyes glanced up at him momentarily, before an equally timid voice squeaked out the word "Ro" in a familiar voice.

The action that followed had not necessarily been thought out to an extent. If anything, his hand had simply moved in that direction, with speed and devastating force behind it, and landed on the closest thing in its path. The result was a resounding sound of soft flesh being struck by skin of a rougher texture, and the new view of the wall and gym equipment that sat to his lower left. A few seconds trailed afterwards, in which Seth brought his now widened eyes back to Roman's crippling angry face – his injured cheek being cushioned by his own hands.

"Ro—"

"Roman!" Clambered out in a loud bark from the tall man stood behind a bewildered Rollins. "What the hell do you—?"

"Why the hell did you run away Seth?!" Roman shouted – drowning out what the tall man wanted to say, "Where the hell did you go?! Where the hell have you been?!" He moved closer the Seth – forcing the younger man to visibly flinch – and quickly grabbed the teen in his large arms, and held him in the muscles of his board chest with intent to mildly suffocate. "What would I have done if you didn't come back?"

Seth tensed lightly to the break in Roman's baritone voice, only to find himself relaxing to the feel of Roman's arms tightened around him. Instantly, he returned the favor. "I'm sorry, Ro." His voice muffled in the fabric of Roman's shirt. "I'm really sorry. I won't do this again. Ever."

The older man pulled away by a few millimeters to allow his eyes to grace Seth's face – reddened and slightly swollen on the left side. "Damn right you won't, or else I'll do more than beat you up." Rollins smiled lightly as Roman hugged him briefly for the second time, "You had me so fucking worried."

"M'sorry." Seth replied with a lower tone.

From behind the broad back of Roman Reigns, Dean watched the reunion with a warm smile on his face – knowing that had this been day one of his return, he would have probably left this very evening fearing that his presence was no longer needed and welcome. As his eyes took in Roman and Seth now being joined by an elated Bo, unconsciously his gaze shifted upwards and found Randy looking on with a deep-rooted sadness strewn across his usually cold eyes. Ambrose felt his expression shift from the happiness that had once possessed it, the longer he watched Orton look on in unreachable pain. However, before his body could react to it all, the older brunette had already turned on his heels, and had begun his descent down the stairs.

"Randy!" Roman called out, stopping the older man in his tracks. Seth looked over his shoulder, landing his eyes on Orton's back. "Thank you...for bringing him home."

With his back still facing the men on the stairs, Orton replied in a deep-grotto voice. "It's not like you're the only one who needs him." Reigns rose an eyebrow in intrigued confusion as Randy glanced slightly to his right as though intending to look back – opting instead to look ahead and throw a back-handed wave to those stood behind him. "See you around."

The brunette left, closing the door behind him as he did. Roman continued to look ahead at the spot where Orton stood, turning his mind over Randy's words. Bo and Seth conversed amongst each other as if the past few hours never happened. In the background, Dean watched the spectacle with a warm smile on his face.

"You must be starving, Seth." Rollins looked up to the sound of his name. Roman turned his attention around as Bo followed suit. "I'll whip up some dinner."

"I'll help" Roman replied loudly as he tore away from Seth and headed towards Dean. Halfway there, his feet stopped cold, bringing his eyes quickly over his shoulder. "You too, Seth." The younger man blinked rapidly as he wrestled himself out of the train-wreck of thoughts that had polluted his mind in the five seconds it had taken Roman to turn away from him. "And you as well, Bo."

Bo smiled politely as he shook his head, "No thanks, Sir. I should be getting home before my family starts worrying." He placed a hard pat on Seth's shoulder, "See you at school, bud."

"Yeah." Seth gave a short-lived smile, "See you."

The long-haired teenager took a few steps down and exited the building in much the same fashion as Randy had. Having watched his friend leave, Seth brought his auburn eyes back towards the inside of his home. Once there, he found Dean busying himself around a calm looking Roman, hearing as the two men argued playfully over who was doing what. He heaved a deep breath, and smiled gently to the pleasant scene playing out in front of him – feeling, as he closed the front door, the long-forgotten warmth of a family flood his entire being.


	15. Coda

**ONE YEAR LATER**

* * *

"This is why I don't like Randy Orton." He spoke with bile-tasting disdain dripping from each word. "He's had his eye on Seth. I always sensed it, so I did everything I could to keep Seth from him." His hands clenched into an even tighter pair of fists. "And here he goes and hypnotizes Seth into this bullshit!" The table shook to the force of heavy hands striking its surface.

The blonde looked over from the kitchen at the mess of askew cutlery and now spilled coffee and juice laying atop the small table. He sighed heavily, turning off the running tap as he did, and forgoing washing the dishes to assist with clearing the table.

"Ever since I met him, I've always done things his way. No matter how ridiculous or selfish his demands, I never said no. I gave him what he asked for without any argument." He looked to the blonde stood across the table, "So why can't he just do as I ask this one time? Why does he have to be so fucking stubborn?"

"Well, you know what they say." The blonde replied as he stretched across the table with a few sheets of paper towel attached to his hand. "Like father like son."

"He's my brother." He snarled, before sighing loudly – head hanging low in defeat. "Why can't he just understand that I've only got his best interests at heart?"

* * *

"He says he's got my best interests at heart, but he's just so blinded by his hatred of you that he won't allow himself to admit when he's wrong!" His brows furrowed in intense fury. "I'm an adult now, so he should respect my decision and stop being so stubborn!"

"Well you know what they say. Two peas in a pod." The brunette drank back a swig of his coffee. "And to add, you're only eighteen."

"Well, I'm legal!" He snapped viciously, before wolfing down another forkful of pancake. "N'sides, iz not like iz 'atters to you!"

"You…don't talk with your mouth full." The brunette sighed heavily, "This is why you're still a brat."

He quickly drank down a heavy helping of sweet coffee, before slamming the red mug against the wood table. "If I'm such a brat, then that must make you some kind of pervert, old man!"

"And now you're calling me names. Like a brat." The younger man set up to respond with all the ire currently expressed on his face, however the brunette stepped in with the remainder of his sentence. "Anyways, it's not such a bad thing living on campus." He smirked wickedly, "You might meet someone who you like more than me. Maybe a nice girl you can marry and have kids with."

The younger man felt his jaw reconfigure to fit the words that stood on the bumps of his tongue. However, in that same moment, his mindset lost its footing on a more pertinent issue, and so threw aside the childish anger for adult levelheadedness. "Why would you say that? You sound just like him." He looked to the older man with saddened eyes, "I don't want someone else. I want you. I'll only always want you. Why won't anyone believe me?"

The older man heaved a low breath as he raked back the short bristles of hair atop his head. "It's not like I don't believe you, it's just…" He sighed loudly as his eyes set to the tear-stricken eyes of the man sat ahead of him. "When I was married, I knew that she was the person I would be spending the rest of my life with. Then, we divorced, and after three years of being married, I have nothing to show for it." He put his arm across the table, and grabbed hold of younger man's hand – squeezing tightly once he fully grasped it. "I love you. I know that. I also know that you're the last person I will ever love, because I know that if you do leave me, there'll be nothing left for me to give to someone else. I know all this and it fucking scares me." His fingers tightened their hold on the young man's hand. "You've only ever known Roman and been in that kind of brotherly relationship. You don't know what love really is, what it does, and how much it hurts once it's gone. But I do." His jaw clenched as he forced back the overflowing emotion threatening to overwhelm him. "That's why I'll keep telling you what reality is so that you don't ever have to go through the kind of hell that I've lived."

To the painted words, the younger man took a moment to look at the hand that trapped his own. Veins that were buried deep in his own skin were conversely on full display beneath the thin layer of skin coating the older man's large hand. His touch sensors felt the roughness of the older man's palm and fingertips, as it grated across his own soft flesh. Just in their hands alone, one of their many differences showed in all its bright colors. Age was like a roaring river descending from the mountains towards the sea. It was an unstoppable force of destruction that could never be bridged, and in its watery churns, it carried the muddy contents of experiences that he had yet to live or know. To add, the love that they had proclaimed to each other many times over was never something of a similar nature. His love was the kind that allows people to see stars and roses and is filled with those sun-shiny days that others sing about. On the contrary, the man he loved held a very different feeling. For the older man, love wasn't something people could promise to have for another. People could say it because it summarized all they liked about each other, and what they tolerated about each other, but it could never have any deeper meaning. Love, for the older man, was just a word that stemmed from a feeling. And feelings change given time and circumstance.

"I know you're trying to protect me by keeping a safe distance between us, but I love you Randy." He spoke with his eyes still sitting on the older man's hand. "But" He paused with a clenched jaw, "if you want me to leave, I will."

"I don't want you to leave, Seth!" The brunette shouted, as he gripped the younger man's hand tighter, "Didn't you hear a word I just said? I want you—"

"So you don't want me to leave?" Seth asked with his eyes set focused on Randy's lightly panicked expression.

Perplexed by Seth's deadpan question, Randy put on hold his need to think, instead choosing his desire to act. "Yes." He spoke bluntly, "I don't want you to leave me, Seth."

"Then I won't." He heaved a heavy breath, "I'll stay with you and keep showing you how much I love you." He smiled tenderly at the older man, "I can promise you that."

Randy coughed up a quick smile as he hung his head for a moment. "You sounded like an adult just now."

"I have my moments." He replied cheekily.

Randy looked back at the younger man with a charmed expression on his face. "If you intend to keep that kind of promise, then I guess I have no choice but to live with you."

Instantly, Seth's face lit up with a bright smile, "Really?" Randy nodded in reply. The younger man quickly pushed up from his chair and leaned over the table – knocking some of the items on the way – and planted a long kiss on Randy's lips. The kiss broke a short time after, as Seth pulled back and sat back down in his chair. "Thank you."

"You should thank me in bed, but" He grinned deviously, "you're still a brat."

"I'll make you regret that, old man." Seth snapped back brazenly, before his tone took a downturn. "If I could just get Ro to accept us."

"He will."

Seth looked up at the older man, "How are you so sure?"

"Because he's your brother." Randy smiled tenderly at him, "I just know he will."

* * *

"He must think because I'm his brother, and because I have a soft spot for him, and because I love him so damn much, I'll just accept his and Randy's relationship and condone them living together in the city." His eyes narrowed to the vast open landscape beyond the confines of his balcony. "He's still just a kid. He doesn't know anything about love, and relationships. College is the time in his life when he would be experiencing those things, finding out who he really is, and _then_ meeting somebody to share the rest of his life with." His brows furrowed once more, "Randy's got him all backwards."

"You know Randy would never hurt him, Roman." The blonde spoke from the older man's left side.

"I know. I know." He conceded before sighing as his gaze slipped to the ground directly beneath the suspended balcony. "It's not like I'm worried about Randy hurting Seth on purpose. It's just that Seth doesn't know little things like underlining tones, or words beneath words, or even actions behind other actions. He doesn't get intricacies and that could cause him to misunderstand something Randy might say or do. And then he would be hurt by it, and being in the city so far from home, he might not be able to recover." His hands tightened over the railing. "Randy's been down that road before. He's been married, and divorced. He's lived that part of life, so he knows all the ins and outs, so on the other hand, Seth could tread waters that he shouldn't be treading and cause Randy to leave him. And then he would be hurt by it, and he'd most likely break down, and being so far from home…" He trailed to a halt.

"You're worried they'll end up like us nine years ago?"

Reigns looked to his left before sighing heavily and looking ahead, "Yeah." He admitted, "We didn't understand nor think about the details. We didn't even consider the rules, and that cost us. That cost us a lot."

"That's true." The blonde agreed with his attention on the greater distance. "But, it's like you said Roman. Randy has experience. We never had experience." He looked to the older man, "Thinking about it now, you're actually my first love." Roman looked back with a gaping shock settled on his face. The younger man chuckled lightly to the reaction. "Back then, we were kids, Roman. You were looking for someone you could protect, and I was looking to be protected. We never communicated anything else past that point, took what we thought was love at face value, and we lost a lot of years because of it." He smiled thinly at the older man, "Seth actually has a better start than we ever did. He's got someone in his life who knows what love really is, and who's willing to share that knowledge for the betterment of their relationship." With an outstretched arm, he gently petted Roman's shoulder. "There'll probably be days when those two argue, and fight. And Seth might run back here every now and again to vent. However, I know Randy will do whatever it takes to make it right, and win Seth back."

Roman took a moment's pause, before looking at the man gazing at him with a light smile. "How can you be so sure of that?"

"Because as far as you're willing to go for me, he's willing to go even further for Seth." He smiled brightly –exposing the dimples embedded in the sides of his face. "And when it comes to a last chance at love, there's nothing a person won't do to make it last." Roman looked on with deep-rooted understanding. "You and I are proof of that."

The older man sighed weakly, before bringing to light a large smile. His arm instantly lifted and wrapped around the blonde's shoulder – bringing the man close enough to plant a light kiss in the mass of curly blonde hair sat atop his head.

"I'll talk to him when he gets back." He spoke with eyes gazing down at the younger man, "Thank you Dean, for listening, and for the advice." His voice lowered slightly, "I love you."

"Me too." Dean smiled as he placed a light kiss of his own on Roman's lips. "But it doesn't get you out of kitchen duty."

A short-lived fit of laughter shot from Roman's throat, ending once he felt Dean's arm squeezing around his waist. "It was worth a try." He smiled tenderly, "But before that," His eyes shifted back to Dean, "let's commemorate the start of having the house all to ourselves."

Dean glanced slyly up at the older man, before shaking his head beneath a thin smile. "Lead the way."

"With pleasure."


End file.
